'Priest'review: Church-vs-vampire adventure is worth sinking your teeth into

A specially-trained priest battles vampires in a postapocalyptic landscape. WithPaul Bettany,Cam Gigandet,Karl Urban. Director:Scott Charles Stewart. (1:27) PG-13: Violence. At area theaters.

It appears that turning theJohn Ford/John Wayneclassic"The Searchers"into the church-vs-vampire adventure"Priest"was not an altogether god-awful idea. As long as we don't get"The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance"as an elegiac zombie drama, this adaptation of a graphic novel has some bite.

Mixing about four different genres into its first few minutes,"Priest"settles down into a postapocalyptic world rebuilding after a war with vampires, during which the most effective soldiers on the side of mankind were specially-chosen and trained priests. In the crowded, industrial-grade cities, the church controls all aspects of life, though it's a real absentee landlord, and its lead monsignor (Christopher Plummer) is a corrupt autocrat.

Outside the cities, there's a familiar movie-movie wasteland– it's the landscape Mad Max roamed, or whereCharlton Hestonfought intelligent Apes, or whereDenzel Washingtonbattled evil in"The Book of Eli"– and a young homesteader girl (Lily Collins) has been kidnapped by a roving band of vampires and their half-vamp servants, led by a fiend (Karl Urban, Dr. McCoy in the rebooted"Star Trek") with a black hat and aClint Eastwoodrasp.

The girl is the niece of a priest (Paul Bettany) who, like his fellow vamp-hunters of the cloth, has been relegated to outcast status. When he goes in search of her, he finds the girl's lawman-boyfriend (Can Gigandet), and the two go off to save her, aided by a priestess (Maggie Q) and a smock full of tiny killer crucifixes.

Director Scott Charles Stewart, who directed the similar Bettany-starrer"Legion,"doesn't hide the"Searchers"homages, so much so that they stop being a stake in cinephile's hearts and begin to become fun. A former visual effects guy, Stewart also makes sure his vampires have a distinctive look; they're like angry, speechless, fanged slugworms with slimy bear bodies. Their minions resembleUncle Fester, and, like the vamps, they have a shimmery sheen to their white skin.

Bettany does the monosyllabic stranger bit well, and Gigandet apparently studiedJeffrey Hunter's male ingénue in"The Searchers"so well that when he learns a secret about the girl and the priest, he barely registers emotion. No matter; if you come to"Priest"for emotion, or for a serious dissection of God-versus-the Church ideas, you've arrived at the wrong movie. If, however, you're looking for a diverting sci-fi actioner that handily mixes the DNA of several different movies, with a few flying crosses thrown in and a heavy dose of Western mythology, sink your teeth in.

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