Sometimes you have to wonder about the choices actors make, but when you remember that acting is as much a job as it is a craft/art, then we as film critics have to be a little gentler with them and place the responsibility on the directors and producers that hire them.

In this case I am referring to Paul Bettany who has done some impressive work in films such as A KNIGHT'S TALE, GANGSTER NO 1 and CREATION. He has also appeared in the critically derided LEGION, which was a half decent idea with a poor script. Despite this Bettany has again teamed up with LEGION director Scott Stewart for another high-concept apocalyptic movie, this time involving vampires.

After LEGION it was clear that Stewart, whose background is in special effects, likes to mix up his genres, or sub-genres, and with PRIEST he seems to have taken nearly all of them, bar romantic comedy, and mixed them together into something of a murky cocktail. There are westerns, post-apocalyptic, steampunk, horror, vampires, sci-fi and noir.

The basic story is (and it is a basic story) that human and vampires have always existed but not in harmony, but the vampires have finally been subdued by a warrior class of priests and contained on reservations.

However, there are still some left in the wilds and when the family of one of the priests (Bettany) is attacked and his niece abducted he decides to go and rescue her, against the wishes of the church hierarchy, led by Christopher Plummer. Cue chases and fights and an obvious conclusion.

The story is based on a Tokyopop manga, which are more than happy to borrow tropes, so full responsibility can't be put on the shoulders of the director, but I suspect the visual styling is his and, like the story, it is full of clichés. In fact, the whole thing feels like homage to some of cinemas greats.

There are bits of Ridley Scott's BLADE RUNNER and ALIEN, there's some Serge Leone and Clint Eastwood, along with bits of 1984, MAD MAX, Ken Russell, Robert Rodriguez and Hong Kong action. The list goes on and on: and all in a slightly unnecessary 3D.

To be fair, for a 3D post conversion it was actually quite well done, and this is coming from someone who doesn't like 3D at the best of times, although adding the darkening effect of the 3D glasses to a film that is mostly set in the dark doesn't really help.

Having said all that, and in spite of its clichéd script and visuals, I found it surprisingly entertaining, possibly for that very reason. Like one of those radio stations that plays hit songs from bands you don't really like but you realise you have those songs on your iPod because they are OK songs – I believe guilty pleasures is the phrase that gets used.

If you don't take the film to be a serious work of cinematic art, although the title sequence could claim to be, but see it as yet another comic-book adaptation then it will amuse. If you do get bored of the predictable story and action then you can always play spot-the-movie-the-scene-was-borrowed-from, and it was certainly better than the over-hyped SUCKER PUNCH. Besides, anything that portrays the church as a bunch of manipulative psychopaths can't be all bad.

PRIEST is in cinemas now.

We have a limited edition Priest robe to give away.

Click the link below to enter the competition.