The Edward Cullen brand of vampires we love, made irresistible by Robert Pattinsonareportrayed as slimy alien ghouls in Priest, the latest Hollywood product to exploit our fascination with the undead.

That’s not the only thing that will turn you off this adaptation of a Korean comic by Min-Woo Hyung, which explores the theme of man’s desperate war against the vampires and how blind faith in his sci-fi world circa of the 19th Century, keeps them from even acknowledging the attacks by these creatures and hence protecting themselves from bloodbath and sin.

Set in an unnamed country slavishly following the Catholic religion, the people are bound by the stringent rules of the old-fashioned Voltori-like Clergy. Such rules include – if the vows made to the Church are broken, they would be executed. The mantra of the Clergy is “If you go against the Church, you go against God.”

To bring us up to speed, Priest opens with a comic animation that explains the dark times when humans were at war with Vampires. A group of samurai-ninja hybrid called The Priests were then trained to kill the Vampires as the humans failed to do so.

Priestess Maggie Q, prays before any battle with the vampires. This is a ritual for all Priests.

After a gruesome period of vampire butchery, The Priests are told to disband and the vampires are exiled to a reservation far away.

Centuries after, the vampires strike again, kidnapping the Lucy (Lily Collins), the niece of Priest (Paul Bettany). Lucy also happens to be the girlfriend of Hicks (Cam Gigandet), a Sherriff. As Priest defies the Clergy to seek and fight the vampires in search of his niece, they deploy other Priests to stop him, one of them being a Priestess (Maggie Q). However, she turns her back on the Clergy and joins forces with Priest and Hicks in their mission.

Throughout the moive, the equipment used were given a futuristic touch to set contrast to the dessert environment. The Priest rides this futuristic motorcycles in search for vampires.

Instead of staying pretty for the camera, the good-looking trio of Paul Bettany, Cam Gigandet and Maggie Q, make feeble attempts to portray violent fight scenes.

Directed by Scott Stewart, an accomplished visual effects artist and technologist, who brought to life The Lost World: Jurassic Park, the film suffers doubly from viewers’ high expectations of special effects. As with Stewart’s previous film, Legion, which also featured an extreme view of religion,Paul Bettany plays the religious rebel lead figure.

The exaggerated sound effects distracts the audience, making the special effects seem spectacular when it actually is the opposite.

Even in 3D, the effects fail to impress. In fact, it was a sloppy conversion from 2D to 3D, with the exception of the flying ashes during and after every fight scene, and of course, that got as predictable as the rest of the show.

Being only a Sherriff, Hicks, is put at a disadvantage when fighting Vampires, he clutches to his gun, terrified.

On top of a derivative Indiana Jones meets Blood: The Last Vampire and cliché plot, Cam Gigandet’s acting is thoroughly disappointing. Gigandet also starred in a number of under-developed movies like Burlesque and The Roommate, so no surprise there. The script doesn’t help either, with punch lines and sudden turnarounds falling flat due to the lack of excitement between the actors.

A script with not much substance and a picture with forgettable 3D effects, its only redeeming factors were its loud sound effects and its attractive cast.

Rating: 2/5
Directed by Scott Stewart
Written by Cory Goodman (screenplay), Min-Woo Hyung (Korean comic)
Starring: Paul Bettany, Lily Collins, Maggie Q, Cam Gigandet
Release Date: 11 May 2011
Runtime: 88 minutes
Language: English
Rating: NC-16