Things didn't look good for Priest. From the same director of the lame Legion and a hoard of scathing reviews, I was expecting the Paul Bethany comic book adaptation to be a steaming pile of poo doo. Fortunately it's an ambitious, large scale science fiction tale with nearly enough, but not quite, budget to pull it off.
In a story that mirrors the classic John Wayne western The Searchers, a retired killer (of vampires) heads out into the wilderness, along with the girls loyal but inexperienced boyfriend, to rescue his teenage niece from the clutches of the barbarian natives (vampires). It's got a look that's not too far removed from The Mutant Chronicles and a 2000AD comic vibe as with the Priest himself coming across like Judge Dredd leaving Mega City to go into the Cursed Earth to battle muties.
Apart from some dodgy effects work (the badness of which is nullified by a hyper-stylised 300-ish look) the visual aspects of the story have scale, with some dusty western photography, epic landscapes and some surprisingly coherent action sequences.
Priest can't be described as 'good', but it is very much a guilty pleasure movie for those that like a bit of far-future sci-fi nonsense. Yep, there's not an aspect of the plot that's not been done better elsewhere, the great cast are phoning it in, and the budget always feels like they spent $10 million on booze rather than the CGI, but it's got vision, style, action-aplenty, a sinister Karl Urban and a cute Lily Collins.
Enjoyable bollocks.
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