May 19, 2011
I Bet That Face Tattoo Really Hurt.
Sometimes people go “Let’s go see a movie!” and then I go see a movie because being active socially is top of cool. Sometimes, though, the movie I go to see in these sorts of scenarios is not really the sort of film that I would see otherwise. Priest was that sort of film. When I told Essner that I went to see this movie, his first question was, “Well, it was at least better than Legion, right?” To which I responded, “Yeah, yeah, it was better than Legion.”
Let me just set the tone for this film. The movie starts, and you see a bunch of monk-looking dudes in a cave. One of them says: “This place feels like our grave.” That’s the first line. That’s what they open with. I knew immediately that I was not in for a great movie-viewing experience at that point.
The film is based on some sort of Manga, and the movie tries really hard to stay true to this manga nobody has ever heard of. (Well, okay, I never heard of it, and didn’t know anyone who had before the film came out.) Like, there’s constant back story, and constant desperate attempts to fill in who these characters are, instead of showing us who they are. In general, it’s not super important, because everyone is a pretty straightforward archetype with no real depth, but they really want you to know that this is, like, a world, you know? So they go for it anyway.
Basically, there are vampires, but these vampires are just like Hunters from Left 4 Dead only with no eyes and no hoodies. So they screech and leap about, and sunlight lights them on fire, I suppose. They’re also kind of sticky. There’s a main character, who is a Priest. Priest is future-world for Vampire Hunter. He’s bound by the church to not hunt vampires, but since he’s a vampire hunter, he’s going to anyway, and UH OH the church doesn’t like that! Also, someone has been turned into a Human Vampire. So that’s… a… thing…?
There’s a love side plot, and everyone is related for no reason, and there are action scenes. I will give the movie this: the action scenes were not bad. Some of them were super ridiculous (I must throw my throwing stars into the air and then kick them at the vampires, instead of just throwing them! This makes sense!) and the end battle against the villain was extremely unrewarding (they just kind of decided that, oh, shit, we’re out of ideas, everything explodes), but it was indeed and action movie with action scenes, which makes it way better than Legion, like I mentioned.
The main “theme” of the movie, which they repeat constantly, over and over, is that the power of the Priests don’t come from the church, but they come from God. Which is nice, I guess. It’s nice to have a “corrupt church” plot where the characters still keep their faith. The institution can be corrupt, but the deity can still exist and be nice. It’s a change of pace, at least. But seriously, it is crammed down your throat, and makes little sense since, honestly, the church plays such a little role in the film you could have cut it out completely and still had the whole movie make sense. It wasn’t really an important conflict.
Finally, I saw it in 3D. That was a waste. Movies, stop being in 3D. Stop it.
Anyway, there are some thoughts. I can’t really recommend the film, but the people I went to see it with really seemed to enjoy it, so I guess it’s doing something right. I just like my action to not take itself seriously, a la Shoot ‘Em Up, or have some genuine, actual impact and relevance to a plot. This really did neither, being ridiculous and taking itself way, way, way, way, way too seriously. So, yeah. Wouldn’t recommend it.