Box Office Review - Priest

When I went to the first screening of Priest on Friday I saw something interesting. An individual, who almost certainly was a teenage male had taken a drink straw and lid and successfully got it caught between the theatre ceiling tiles. While this would have been impressive if it was done at the top of the theatre where there is a ten foot gap between the seats and the ceiling. It is even more impressive that this straw and lid was stuck in the ceiling near the bottom of the theatre where there is at least a thirty foot gap between the ceiling and the seats. The force that this straw would have to have travelled in order to get stuck in the ceiling tile would have to be considerable, so I started thinking of scenarios. The straw and lid by themselves would be much to light to travel the at least thirty feet straight up without any enhancement. My first thought was that something would have to be attached to the straw. I asked myself what does one bring to the theatre with them? My first thought was keys, and in order to attach said keys to the straw and lid, one could use a shoe lace. There is a problem with this theory though as no keys or shoelace were attached to the straw or lid. Ruling out the idea that whoever pulled this stunt had a length of elven rope with them, only one explanation remains. Whoever did this must have had a a blow dart gun specifically designed for straws. I realize that contemplating something as meaningless as a straw stuck in a theatre roof is ridiculous, but trust me, contemplating this meaningless conundrum is riveting compared to the horrible, and pointless film that is Priest.

It is a rare film that makes one question whether or not watching films is a worthy practice, and Priest did this for me. There is literally nothing interesting, original, or redeeming about this film. It is not fun, it is not compelling, and it is not escapism. There is no reason for Priest to have even be made. The only reason that this was even green lit is because it is based on a comic book, which these days means money.

The premise is that vampires and humans have been at war forever. The vampires are not human, but are basically large ferocious ants. In order to defeat them, special warrior Priests were ordained by God and they killed a bunch of vampires, and then put the rest into a reserve. A bunch of time later, everyone hates all the Priests (why? I have no idea) but it seems that the vampires are starting to attack again. Paul Bettany plays a Priest whose brother and wife get killed, and his niece is taken by the vampires. The church denies any vampire attacks, so Bettany must go against the church in order to save his niece. What follows is a science fiction/horror rip off of The Searchers.

The only nice thing I can say about this film is that I wasn't surprised that it was horrible. None of the trailers are very well made, so I guess I should have known better. Priest was delayed from a 2010 release because it went through a 3D post conversion. The film takes place almost entirely in the dark, and with the added darkness of 3D there are many scenes that are basically black screen. At least these dark scenes allowed me more time to think about the straw stuck in the ceiling.

A Banana Peel