Priest

[akashiver]

Last night I saw Priest, starring Paul Bettany as a mystically-powered vampire hunter in a Post-Apocalyptic Future (TM). I went in with low expectations and ended up enjoying it much more than other films of its ilk (I'm looking at you, Equilibrium). 

For one thing, the cool-looking people in black could actually fight. No gun-fu nonsense here. More importantly, they could fight while riding their turbo-charged motorcycles.

Also, did I mention that the film features Paul Bettany and Maggie Q. as repressed lovers/Gothic-Catholic-warrior-priests fighting an army of decently-rendered CGI vampires led by Clint Eastwood's The Man With No Name? And that the plot is ripped off from John Ford's The Searchers, but with less horrible racism and more wire-fu? AND THAT THEY'RE RIDING TURBO-MOTORCYCLES?

The film definitely has its faults, starting with the fact it's a Bad Movie. The film has no interest in developing its characters or, you know, making any damn sense. But did anything in the previous paragraph sound like it was from a "Good Movie"? Let's move on.

What I do fault the film on is its dystopia, because it's obvious  the evil overlords just weren't really trying. First, they decorated their dystopia with Pier One's Bladerunner-line furniture, and topped it off with some1984 slogan posters that they ordered online.

Sadly, they made the mistake of many first-time dystopia-builders and didn't ask whether this decor would actually work for them. Towering city-scapes of perpetual darkness might look cool, but in a world ravaged by sun-fearing vampires, blocking the sun from your cities has some drawbacks. Also, it makes no damn sense.

This might have been remedied if you had an actual Evil Overlord, but Christopher Plummer was obviously given the job for his menacing looks, and not because he's genuinely eeevel. The guy has no idea how to be a supervillain. For example, it apparently has never occurred to him to stop people from leaving the dystopia. At the very least, he needs better border control, because every time someone defies him they can stroll out of his city with ease.

Poor Christopher Plummer. He's like the George W. Bush of Dystopian Overlords.

Anyway. The movie is what it is. It's not worth seeing in theaters, but if you've already seen (I'm sorry) films like Equilibrium and that one about the cannibalistic Scots behind Hadrian's Wall, then it's unlikely that you'll suffer more brain damage from this experience.

And this one has turbo-motorcycles. Which people cover in explosives and then surf towards moving objects. While fighting.

Just saying.