In a world (IN A WORLD) where vampires are these gloopy, pale, eyeless monsters, the Church employs Priests - some kind of super-warriors with jumpy-flippy powers and cool weapons - to beat them back. This works too well, they win the war, and the priests are assimilated into society, which would be easier if they didn't have fucking crosses tattooed on their faces. One such Priest (Bettany) has retired to a life of brooding when vampires kill his sister-in-law (Mädchen Amick), mortally wound his brother (Stephen Moyer), and kidnap his niece Lucy (Collins).
Priest asks the Church Council to be reinstated, but the lordy high monsignor guy (Plummer) tells him to piss off, we won the war, no more vampires, these are just raiders out in the wastelands. Obviously Priest can't let that go, so he follows Sheriff Hicks (Gigandet), the local law and also Lucy's boyfriend, out into the wastelands where he kills a bunch of familiars (pale humans with weird eyes) and vampires, until he discovers that this is all being orchestrated by a former priest-turned-vampire (Urban)!
This is based on a graphic novel, and it very much feels like it. It's also inspired by Blood, the old first-person shooter video game, which I've never played. It's a little sad in some ways, because it's got a great cast, Bettany is doing his best and he's actually pretty good as an action hero, and the premise has some schlocky gothic potential. But it just kinda...ploops out?
Like, these things are "vampires," which is fine, they're night-stalking creatures that drink blood. But what are they? It's a big screaming deal that Black Hat (Urban's character) is a "human vampire", but that's never discussed until close to the end. Familiars can handle sunlight, and that's apparently what happens when people get bitten, but people can be "infected" - does that mean they grow into the gross hanging blob-cocoons that Priest finds in the vampire train? The logistics are never explained, and that's only a problem because these are "vampires" and that word has a lot of baggage that I don't think we really needed.
Also, making the movie PG-13 was a bad choice. This was in 2011, when everything had to be PG-13 (we were in the early stages of the MCU and the studios were realizing how much money there was in adapting comics and bringing in the 13-20 demographic, but they apparently missed that you have to adapt them well), so here we have a movie about brutal vampires that had to animate part of its sequence so it could show blood and dismemberment (the animated sequence is pretty cool, granted).
It's not a bad watch, it's fun to watch Bettany nibble scenery and Urban and Dourif chew it, but it's dark and dour and it could have been more interesting.
My Grade: D+
Rewatch Value: Low
Rewatch Value: Low
Next up: Public Enemy, technically, though I suspect I'm going to get another crappy movie from Toasty today
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