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Movie Reviews:

Priest Unrated Blu-ray 

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment - 2011

Directed by Scott Stewart
Written by Cory Goodman

Starring
Paul Bettany
Karl Urban
Cam Gigandet
Maggie Q
Lily Collins
Stephen Moyer
Christopher Plummer

In a future post apocalyptic world, a war between man and vampire has gone on for hundreds of years.   A warrior priest (Paul Bettany) receives word that his niece as been kidnapped by a new hive of bloodsuckers.  To save her, he must break his vow of peace and hunt down the hive.

Paul Bettany seems to have chemistry with Director Stewart as they two of them have made two pretty strong films together (LEGION and PRIEST).  Karl Urban is very impressive as the wickedly evil priest/vampire called "Black Hat."  Cam Gigandet has loads of charisma as the cowboy Sheriff character and Maggie Q brought a lot of heart to the film besides her incredible physical abilities.

PRIEST is a visual FX smorgasbord where super fast vampires and vampire guardian monsters attack relentlessly while the priests most do their best undermanned but are more skilled fighters.

After watching LEGION and PRIEST, it's obvious that Director Stewart has a thing desert landscapes.  This film has some real stark dried-out, sun drenched vistas.  Stewarts's background in special visual FX proves to be an obvious asset as the CGI enriched visuals are stunning to say the least.

The movie's production design, cinematography and music are all of super high quality.  I did feel the characters and storyline was at times hollow and predictable.  But the last half hour is the best part as the emotional level reaches a high water mark and I liked the choices made by the writer.

This Blu-ray comes with some fine supplements.  Bullets and Crucifixes: Picture-In-Picture Experience.  Commentary with Director Scott Stewart, Writer Cory Goodman, Paul Bettany and Maggie Q is pretty relaxed and fun.  Information is given out instead of the folks just having a little party for themselves.  Deleted & Extended Scenes, The Bloody Frontier: Creating the World of Priest was my favorite supplement because it's a detailed look behind the scenes without the crew gushing over each other but rather looking at how the work was done on the film  There is drawings, sketches, behind the scenes and interviews with all important crew members. Tools of the Trade: The Weapons Producer Mike De Luca says they took traditional religious icons and turned them into deadly weapons.  They also tried to take old style design combining with the latest power to create hybrid-weaponry.  Vehicles of Priest and Twisted Metal Uncut Trailer.

87 minutes of pure entertainment sure to please.

www.SonyPictures.com/bluray