Priest (2011, USA)

Priest isn’t nearly as bad as Legion – much to its detriment, in fact. Whereas Legion was a screaming pile of awfulness, Priest is what’s left behind when you take all of the fun out of a bad movie. The mythology feels half-hearted at best, as the potentially awesome conceit of a futuristic vampire Western is executed with relentless grimness. The only way to make a film from an idea this wild is with a surfeit of panache, but the only person here who seems to get that is Karl Urban as the big bad. Bettany acts so hard that it seems like he’s performing an eternal chore – I know he’s supposed to be playing a man of the cloth, but won’t someone put him out of his misery? Maybe put him in a nice art film or something? He was funny in A Knight’s Tale – perhaps a comedy?

Speaking of Urban (he’s pretty delightful in the first half of Red, by the way, before getting shoved aside in favor of plot like so many other characters in that movie), it’s difficult when the best aspect of your film is also one of its most thematically problematic. The coolest thing about Priest’s vampires are their beastliness – none of the sexy stranger junk from your typical vampire fare, these are gross creatures, eyeless and feral and dripping with slime. Urban’s introduction (way too early in the film) dashes that almost immediately, giving us yet another suave bloodsucker. Priest tries to have its cake and eat it too, and while that might work in the long-form graphic novel series, here it just reads as laziness.

(And I have to ask – what’s with Cam Gigandet? I have seen him in three movies in the past three months, and I STILL don’t recognize the guy. Total charisma suck.)

Thor (2011, USA)

I’m more familiar with Norse mythology than I am with the Thor comics, so I came to Kenneth Branagh’s Thor totally clean. As such, it’s an interesting construction – Branagh should be commended for packing a lot into his movie without it ever feeling overstuffed, and for doing so and still running just shy of two hours (something that’s nearly unheard of in a major action tentpole these days), but Thor suffers somewhat from telling where it could perhaps be showing. It’s a talky movie, even with character backstories and certain plot points curtailed (and some actors/characters, like poor Rene Russo as Frigga, getting only a handful of lines). Compare it to Iron Man, which ran only about 10 minutes longer but managed to tell the bulk of Iron Man’s origin story in images rather than words, and Thor is the poorer by comparison.

But when Thor relaxes a bit to foreground the visuals, what visuals they are – Asgard is beautifully imagined, down to the subtle mix of modern and historic in the costuming (check out Loki’s amazing horned helm). The 3D, something that I’m generally only a fan of in the service of something as stupid as Drive Angry 3D, is surprisingly understated, highlighting a handful of seriously dramatic images. Branagh has also packed his cast with ringers, from the obvious (Stellan! Sir Tony!) to the subtle (Idris Elba and Colm Feore are perfect in their small roles). Chris Hemsworth acquits himself well, though I did find myself wishing that they’d thrown a couple more members of the Skarsgard clan in there, if just for fun (Alexander would have made a perfect Fandral). In all, it’s a decent popcorn flick, and it will definitely be interesting to see how Thor’s ego will mesh with that of Tony Stark and the other Avengers next May. And maybe Joss Whedon will give us a little less chatting and a little more smiting.

Fast Five (2011, USA)

Far-flung sequels don’t get much more on-point than Fast Five. Where Fast & Furious failed by jamming in everything under the sun (and still managing to be entirely boring – I fell asleep in the final 15 minutes), Five succeeds by paring things down to the basics. It’s more like F. Gary Gray’s The Italian Job than any of the prior films in the franchise, much to its benefit. Despite visits from most of the major characters from all four earlier movies – and finding room to shoehorn The Rock AND a brand-new big bad – it doesn’t feel like there’s much flab on Five - don’t know who Han is? Or that Israeli babe? No matter – just sit back, shut up, and watch them drive cars toward, away, under, between, and through pretty much every major structure in Rio. It’s very loud, very dumb, and if Justin Lin and company can keep it up, I’ll be back for Fast Six.