Priest (2011) - 2/4

About halfway through Priest it struck me that I was watching The Searchers with alien vampires instead of Comanches and ninja priests instead of cowboys. That's not to say it's as good, interesting, or morally complex as The Searchers--or even as a wrinkle in John Wayne's left one; it's just to say that the writer looked to the most moving western ever made for his narrative structure and then filled it with a lot of sci-fi cliches, like a dogmatically-ruled futuristic city, some specially-trained warriors, a rebellious antihero, slick CGI and slow-motion fight sequences.

Priest is about an old warrior teaming up with a young warrior, a sheriff, to recover his niece, held captive by a pack of vampires. If she's been infected, the old warrior will kill her. The young warrior is in love with her, however, and wants to prevent this turn of events.

So that's The Searchers part of it. Here's the scifi part. Vampires are these alien-like creatures, all teeth and no eyes, and priests are like superhuman ninjas trained to fight them--they kick ass for the lord, yes. Vampires are supposed to have been wiped out. That's what the cardinals are telling everyone. The 'old warrior', a middle-aged priest, wants to kill some vampires, but the cardinals have a problem with him heading out to kill things they claim don't exist.

(There's something curiously insightful about how religion works in that, reflecting somewhat how the Catholic Church--the obviously caricatured institution in Priest--dealt with figures like Galileo. The film's representation of a personal religion apart from an institutional one also shows a level of intellectual maturity not usually welcome in Hollywood. So often the hero in these films must divorce himself from all spirituality. In this film, a few tyrannical men have seized power in the Church; otherwise, religion can be a source of personal strength.)

Meanwhile, the vampires are using this opportunity to launch an attack on the city. Karl Urban plays his villain character very Disney-like throughout this sequence, reeking mayhem and taunting the protagonist whilst striking silhouette poses and flailing his arms to no less than a symphony.

The whole film is, in fact, like second-rate Disney, as morally flat and cartoonish as Aladdin 2: The Return of Jafar. It entertains while it hastens past areas needing more development, insults your intelligence, and leaves you with no concern for the destiny of its characters: you'd hardly believe the writers have seen The Searchers were it not for the obvious borrowing. Priest sadly contains a good many missed opportunities for something more; but sometimes you just have to enjoy your priest-on-alien action in a post-apocalyptic western setting for what it is.