Who decided it would be a good idea that the guy who played Chaucer in A Knight’s Tale and the murderous monk Silas in The Da Vinci Code should be turned into a cross between a Jedi, a ninja and Abraham Van Helsing, with a bit of Chuck Norris thrown in for good measure?
A genius, that’s who. Or at least the guy with ideas so crazy they just might work.
Paul Bettany makes a credible badass as the eponymous, vamp-killing protagonist in Priest, a not-as-horrible-as-it-looks summer popcorn flick and the latest post-apocalyptic vampire flick to see the big screen.
The premise is a muddling of varied dystopia mixed with historical themes — think 1984 and Brave New World meet the Spanish Inquisition and the theocracy of the Holy Roman Empire. After victory in the long-fought war with the race of vampires, human civilization is ruled by Big Brother, in the form of the Church. The base, animalistic vampires are left to rot in subterranean reservations. The heroic Knights Templar of the time, warrior-clergy known simply as Priests, are disbanded by the ruling class for fear of their power.
This article appears in May 12-18, 2011.