Full disclosure. I enjoy apocalyptic movies. Even when they aren't very good, I still think they are fun to watch. There is something appealing about having a small band of would-be survivors wandering around as the world falls apart around them and as the audience tries to guess who is going to die in what order. But sometimes, the concept just goes too far even for me. So here is where we have Legion, the movie where God decides he wants to destroy sinful mankind, but instead of sending a flood he decides to send a bunch of monsters to attack a diner.
Oh, sure, it's technically more complicated than that - involving angels, prophecies, unborn saviors of humanity, blah blah blah. Really this movie is about a bunch of monsters attacking a diner. Inside the diner, we have a nice little cast led by Lucas Black, Dennis Quaid, Adrianne Palicki, Tyrese Gibson, and Charles S. Dutton. They are protected by a fallen angel, Michael (played by Paul Bettany), who in the opening scene inexplicably cuts off his own wings and disgards his badass heavenly weapons in a misguided belief that a bunch of machine guns are more effective tools against the apocalypse.
I'll admit, I do admire one thing about the film; it tries to take its time in the beginning. I like that they take time to slow build to the chaos. We are introduced to everyone in the diner one at a time. With a better script, that means we actually would have cared about these characters as they started dying. I also enjoyed the one real good scene in the movie (and the scene that made the trailers so entertaining), when a little old demon grandma runs loose in the diner trying to kill everyone. This scene had some over the top, Sam Raimi/Evil Dead-style silliness that made it really fun. If only the whole movie had been like that...
...because after grandma's exit via the business end of a shotgun, the movie gets bad. Really bad. And fast. All logic gets thrown out the window, characters die in the lamest possible ways, and actors wait around, grimly moping about because they can't wait to be killed off so they can get the heck out of this trashy movie. Worst of all, the movie stops even pretending to have any sort of logic, especially when the archangel Gabriel shows up to wreak havoc and block bullets with his super wings. While Kevin Durand makes for an imposing and a strangely sympathetic villain, this whole climactic battle is terrible, starting bad, getting worse, and then occasionally pausing between punches to make some bold, theological statements that befuddle me ("You gave him what he asked for; I gave him what he needed.").
SPOILER: For the second time in a row, I am reviewing a film where the ending makes no sense. So if God changes his mind and decides that he no longer wants the apocalypse to happen, then why are our surviving heroes driving around in the last scene, armed to the teeth and ready to wage the war against the next wave of possessed monster angels? I think it is because the producers wanted to rip off the powerful last scene of Terminator, where a pregnant Sarah Conner drives around in the desert, armed and ready for Judgment Day. But in Terminator, it all makes sense; Judgement Day is coming. In Legion, Judgement Day has come and gone and everything is now cool again...so what's the big deal? This movie makes my head hurt.
MVP:
I have to give Paul Bettany some credit. Although he is better known for his dramatic work, and his slight frame doesn't seem very tough, Bettany throws himself into the role with gritty earnestness. Bettany must have known that he was making a garbage film, but that doesn't stop him from giving the same professionalism as he would in one of his Oscar contenders like A Beautiful Mind or Master and Commander. He's a good actor, and a surprisingly solid action lead. Let's give him something better than this.
BEST LINE:
Michael: "And yet, in the midst of all this darkness, I see some people who will not be bowed. I see people who will not give up, even when they know all hope is lost. Some people, who realize being lost is so close to being found. I see you, Jeep." Here's an example of a bad line made good by Bettany's performance. It ends up being one of the few nice moments in the movie...
TRIVIA:
The tattoos on Michael are written in Enochian, the language of angels supposedly revealed to John Dee and Edward Kelley in the 16th Century. I have to admit, that is a pretty cool detail. I wish the rest of the movie had been this thought-out.
