Acensbart
Excellent but underrated film
Senteur
As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.
ActuallyGlimmer
The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.
Skyler
Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.
wbagot1
Not sure why this has gotten some bad write ups.It's pretty much what you would expect ... a high action movie with its own plot and world that has some character development, but is focused on the story and fighting. The movie has a definitive ending, although leaving room for sequels if desired.I like how it creates a world and a setting that is different than our own, yet seems to be own world--just a small throw of the dice difference and it could be us--something that I am always partial to for the creativity required ... whether it's Divergent, The Hunger Games, etc.In this case it's earth ... except one in which vampires are real and men have been fighting for 1000 years. Humans won with the creation of the "priest", a fighting warrior of prayer and martial skill. But did they really win? Of course, that's why there's a movie. The priests fell out of style, largely blending with society at its lower rung and are largely forgotten. What would happen if there was a threat and they were needed again?The city setup is well done. It's not great Star Wars level CGI ... but it works and conveys a theocracy living on limited resources, yet not ready to accept the fight hadn't really ended years ago.You won't be bored, it's an intriguing setting, and you'll have plenty of action.Overall, a solid picture.
GL84
After learning of his daughter's abduction by a gang of vicious vampires, a priest defies the local clergy and sets out with several friends to stop her while also running across the slew of creatures attempting to enact the vampires' far more deadly plan in the process.For the most part, this one was far better than it had any right to be. One of the film's best features is its absolutely great pace for the most part here as it's basically like an Action film in how it plays out with all sorts of scenes featuring them out hunting in the wasteland hunting, stalking and combating all the various creatures. By basically engaging in fighting with the various vampires all the time all over the place, this makes for some good times in offering some exciting sequences from the first big brawl in the desert compound where the vampiric creatures begin crawling out of the underground pit and begin acrobatically jumping around to avoid the battle to a stellar confrontation in their underground hive with the monstrous pet creature along the pit where the two of them team up to bring the creature down. Other great action scenes, from the attack on the workers on the outskirts of town to the surprisingly fun rampage through town with a lot of fun attacks and battles going on off to the sidelines of the scene which lets this one get really exciting. That builds up into the finale on the train which gets really exciting here with the desert bike chases, the brawling on the train and all the different individual battles with the vampires left alive make for some frantic and rather exciting setups which end the film on a high-note. That these elements are so much a huge part of this one, along with the design of the creatures and a higher body count than expected which all boosted this considerably. While these make for a much-better-than-expected effort, it does have some big flaws since this started off on a sour note with the hampering rating and a far more vicious and brutal comic-book style animation than what would be shown in the movie proper to open the film. Beyond that, the film's biggest issue is that the vampire lead is pretty much non-existent and not much of a threat since this one deals more on them chasing him down so his plot is a little underdeveloped and really seems shoehorned into the proceedings to keep the film going despite being somewhat clever in concept. He's somewhat weak in general as there's not a whole lot of scenes here featuring him to get his plan out and there's just a few moments to really learn his powers so overall he rates pretty low overall here. The only other issue here is the rather blatant and obvious CGI that is featured throughout here, which really manages to stick out quite heavily with the creatures and the high-energy action scenes which all look quite symptomatic of the overly CGI make-up that's featured here. Otherwise, there's not a whole lot else wrong here.Rated PG-13: Violence and Language.
Anssi Vartiainen
Priest, based on a Koren comic of the same name, benefits greatly from an intriguing world and backstory. In the future hive-minded vampire race threatened to take over the world. Only the establishment of heavily walled cities and the order of warrior priests turned to tide against the vampires, but now the people are forced to live almost exclusively within the cities, under a theocratic dictatorship.Amazing, visually splendid stuff that is the perfect setting for an action-packed post-apocalyptic shoot-em-up festival. Add in a great lead in Paul Bettany and you certainly have a great starting point to build your movie from. Unfortunately the story is rather boring. The niece of Paul Bettany's priest character gets kidnapped and he has to go out, kill some vampires and save her. Basic stuff. In fact, too basic. There are no stages, because you know perfectly well how the story's going to go once you've seen the opening scene.Though, yes, I do admit that the movie has some surprised near the end, but those surprises don't save the story, quite the opposite in fact, because that haven't been set up in any way. Thus they come straight of nowhere, leaving the viewer frustrated and annoyed as the movie closes.Still, Priest is a great movie to check out if you're into dystopian, post-apocalyptic films with a fantasy/scifi tone. The action scenes work great, the visual designs are fantastic, the two main actors are in all honestly too good for the film, and even the story, while disappointing, is not awful by any means. In a sense this has all the makings of a typical cult film. It's stupid, but a great deal of fun if you're into its premise.
SiberianHusky_Angel
I don't know why Priest got so many bad reviews when it is such a great movie. The movie is so underrated and unappreciated, it's ridiculous! People that are giving this movie bad reviews either don't like vampire movies ,or they aren't open to new ideas. Priest isn't mean't to be anything like Twilight, and it also isn't mean't to be anything sexy or about Dracula. Priest has a unique story and has amazing actors and actresses as the lead characters. The movie had a lot of potential and a great desire to be incomparable to all the other vampire films out there. The acting, story, and dialog of this film is incredible, and people should definitely give this movie more credit for that. It isn't the typical vampire movie. Another thing that I should add is the fact that this movie doesn't take two hours or more to get to the point, so that's a bonus. There are several movies out there that are known for taking a long time for the story to build up, but this movie isn't one of them. It takes just the right amount of time to get to the point. I like that the vampires in the film isn't like the ideal and typical vampires we see in most films. They're more monstrous and savage like creatures that definitely creates a whole new impression of vampires. This film is very unique and entertaining, and it deserves much more credibility. I love the film, and I hope they make a sequel.