An ugly exercise in genre filmmaking and religion bashing, Priest marks a new low in the action/horror hybrid, and once again proves why Paul Bettany is the worst action star working today.

“To go against the Church is to go against God”. It is a phrase uttered time and again in Priest, the second pairing of Bettany and director Scott Stewart after the dismally familiar Legion. It’s spoken as a dogmatic mission statement by a church whose only aim is to control, and proves that the agenda of Priest is not only to “entertain” (a word used loosely) but to also try to discredit religion through exploitation.

Bettany has thus far made a career of trying to do just that. The former Catholic turned atheist has spoken of his contempt for religion many times, and it’s reflected in his work. First he played the self flagellating, albino assassin monk in The Da Vinci Code. Then came his turn as the archangel Michael in Legion, defending human beings from murderous angels sent by God to kill off mankind.

Now he plays Priest, a vampire super slayer left out in the cold by an uncaring Catholic Church in a world wrecked by centuries of vampire v mankind warfare.

The remaining survivors now live under the protection of the Church in a vast metropolis, which according to Stewart would be a world resembling a dark, cold, and grimy existence. (Anyone who has walked through the visual splendour of the Vatican should know that dark and doom is not in the Catholic repertoire.)

When word reaches Priest that his brother (Stephen Moyer) has been slain, and niece (Lilly Collins) kidnapped by a vampire with a grudge (Karl Urban), he defies Church authority (as in Christopher Plummer in a cliché role of evil bishop) and heads out to the rescue.

What follows is a schlocky horror movie with a budget. Slick is the operative word here, with computer imagery making an appearance in almost every instance.

The vampire monsters are all CGI and not in the least scary, the action scenes shot in that Matrix-lite anti-gravity kung fu that went out of style years ago, and the soundtrack is LOUD with jump scares a big part of its repertoire.

Worst of all is that Bettany is an unconvincing action star. A good actor yes, but as a punching, kicking, crucifix-shaped-ninja-star dispensing vampire slayer, Bettany is neither convincing nor intimidating, even when putting on a Clint Eastwood croak to little if any effect.

Bettany’s penchant for anti-Catholicism and bad movies has cheapened what should have been a prestigious career. Perhaps it’s time he let go of his deluded prejudice, find a new agent, and loose Stewart’s number.