Priest is a sci-fi action movie based on the novel by Min-Woo Hyung. The story is about a priest warrior exiled from his religious sect, who has to go to war with vampires that have kidnapped one of his family members.
The movie is filled with Christian undertones, which is the only thing giving faith to people in that world, ravaged by a centuries long war with vampires. Paul Bettany plays a priest warrior (that’s a good combination for you), who has to go against the will of his religious leaders, because vampires have kidnapped his niece. He seems much more of a warrior than a priest when you watch Priest online for yourself. We are treated to a lot of action with hand-to-hand combat and other forms of skilful fighting techniques; which is the bread and butter of this movie, given the director Scott Charles Stewart has only recently made the transition to directing from special effects. His previous work has left something to be desired for at least. Concentrating more on finding an interesting script rather than special effects would be a helpful recommendation. About the Christianity in the film, this will no doubt make things more clear to the viewer about the battle of good versus evil. When we watch Priest online, we will automatically support the guys with crosses painted on their faces, rather than the slime-dripping blood-sucking vampires. That is always good, because confusing the boundaries of right and wrong can be a tricky thing to put on the audience. Instead, when we watch Priest online, we can think about how the hero might increase his vampire per minute killing ratio. With that said, some of the cinematography didn’t look half bad, despite it being unoriginal. I guess if you have a good team of set designers working for you, they will always come up with something that is art in itself. Don’t forget either, that this is based on a graphic novel, which is a comic-book in other words. The stories of comic-books are always kind of over-simplified and exaggerated and this has to carry over into the film. Many people will already know the content and will watch Priest online because they want that story to live. It is always black and white and the moral dilemmas of characters do not change the fact that they are either on the side of the good or the bad.
