Fans of the Korean comic book Priest have been waiting patiently to see whether or not Screen Gems’ long-delayed feature film adaptation honors or degrades its source material. The previous trailer seemed to indicate that a few liberties had been taken with the story, but that that the hybrid of western, fantasy and horror genres had been preserved.
Priest‘s rather tumultuous journey to the big screen began when Sam Raimi expressed interest in producing a version directed by Andrew Douglas (The Amityville Horror remake) and starring Gerard Butler. That incarnation evidently deviated even further from the comic and while a bullet may have been dodged when it collapsed, the news that Scott Stewart (Legion) was stepping into the director’s chair and starting from scratch wasn’t particularly reassuring either.
Yahoo! has just debuted a second trailer for Priest and if you were already skeptical, this probably isn’t going to ease any of your concerns. Differences from the comic aside, the first trailer at least did a decent job of laying out the film’s premise and telling audiences everything they needed to know. In my opinion, the new trailer is ridiculously incoherent and sloppy.
In the interest of providing some context for what you’re about to see, here’s the official synopsis for Priest:
PRIEST, a post-apocalyptic sci-fi thriller, is set in an alternate world — one ravaged by centuries of war between man and vampires. The story revolves around a legendary Warrior Priest from the last Vampire War who now lives in obscurity among the other downtrodden human inhabitants in walled-in dystopian cities ruled by the Church. When his niece is abducted by a murderous pack of vampires, Priest breaks his sacred vows to venture out on a quest to find her before they turn her into one of them. He is joined on his crusade by his niece’s boyfriend, a trigger-fingered young wasteland sheriff, and a former Warrior Priestess who possesses otherworldly fighting skills.
And here’s the new trailer:
There’s no denying that Priest is a slick looking movie with some incredibly cool iconography (I really liked the recently released character posters), but this trailer accomplishes the exact opposite of what it’s supposed to – it actually makes me less interested in seeing the film. There are a few interesting action beats, but stylistically speaking – it looks like they just threw everything they could think of at the wall to see what would stick. Then again, maybe it’s just the way this is cut together.
If nothing else, Priest boasts a pretty impressive cast that includes Paul Bettany, Karl Urban, Maggie Q and Christopher Plummer. Watching Urban play an over-the-top villain might be reason enough for me to check this out, but I’m getting the feeling it might be best to approach this with diminished expectations.
Priest will finally hit theaters on May 13th.
Source: Yahoo! Movies.
