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QUICK TAKE:
Horror-thriller: When God loses faith in mankind, He unleashes His legion of angels to bring about the Apocalypse and find and kill a pregnant woman destined to give birth to a second savior.
PLOT:
The archangel Michael (PAUL BETTANY) descends on present-day Los Angeles just ahead of a coming apocalypse. It seems that God has lost His faith that mankind will ever be more than a selfish, war-prone race. So He orders His army of angels to possess human beings and exterminate humanity, starting with Charlie (ADRIANNE PALICKI), the pregnant mother of a possible future savior.
Charlie works at a remote diner/garage, staffed by Bob (DENNIS QUAID), the surly owner; Jeep (LUCAS BLACK), his mechanic son; and Percy (CHARLES S. DUTTON), his short-order cook. As the apocalypse begins, Bob and his staff are serving Howard, Sandra and Audrey Anderson (JON TENNEY, KATE WALSH, and WILLA HOLLAND), a family of three having car problems; Kyle (TYRESE GIBSON), a young drifter who may or may not be violent; and a seemingly sweet old woman named Gladys (JEANETE MILLER) who hides a dark secret.
Michael eventually shows up and helps the humans fend off repeated attacks by possessed humans. He reveals God's dissatisfaction with mankind, but vows to keep the faith and try and salvage the world. At the same time, his rival the archangel Gabriel (KEVIN DURAND) is readying a ruthless attack on the diner to try and kill both Charlie and her newborn baby.
OUR TAKE: 3 out of 10
Our reviewing policy for films that aren't shown in advance to critics (or are done so late the night before they open) is that we'll only provide a paragraph or two about the film's artistic merits or, more accurately, lack thereof. After all, life is too short to spend any more effort than that on a movie that even the releasing studio knows isn't any good (which is why they hid it from reviewers before its release).
"Legion" is a preposterous horror-thriller that was rightfully relegated to a January release and not screened for review. It's about God becoming so disillusioned with humanity that he sends his legions of angels to Earth not to save us or teach us the error of our ways, but to possess the population and use their zombie-like shells to exterminate the species. Our only hope is the one archangel, Michael (Paul Bettany, apparently still doing penance for his crazed, self-flagellating albino in "The Da Vinci Code"), who dares to defy the Almighty's will.
Michael's mission is to seek out the one pregnant woman whose baby will grow up to be a sort of John Connor-like savior. So he arms himself to the teeth with an arsenal of guns, partners with the yokels at a remote desert diner and garage (among them a slumming Dennis Quaid, Charles S. Dutton, Tyrese Gibson, and Kate Walsh), and proceeds to fire at anything that moves.
The religion is muddled. The plot is muddled. And the fate of the human race eventually comes down to the fighting skills of Lucas Black's slow-witted mechanic, Jeep. Yes, the man's name is Jeep. Think Forrest Gump had he been played by C. Thomas Howell. Painful. So is "Legion." It rates a 3 out of 10. (T. Durgin)
Reviewed January 22, 2010 / Posted January 22, 2010
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