It's not easy to summarize the film's plot, but here is an attempt: the Angel Michael (Paul Bettany) renounces his angelic nature and descends to earth in order to protect the woman who will give birth to mankind's next savior. The woman in question is Charlie (Adrianne Palicki), a waitress in a rundown diner a hundred miles from nowhere in the dusty Arizona desert. Dennis Quaid is Bob Hanson, the diner's hard-luck owner, and Lucas Black plays his son, Jeep, who fixes cars (get it?) and pines away for Charlie. Charlie, meanwhile, is pregnant, the baby's father is out of the picture, and she plans to give the baby away. These last several points are exposited in about thirty seconds' worth of dialogue approximately two minutes after Jeep and Charlie, inexplicably living together in a trailer on a playground, first appear onscreen. We also learn that Jeep has been having weird, dark dreams about Charlie and the baby. That can't be good.
Other characters are required to show up in order to get the action going, so we soon meet a family of travelers - Kate Walsh plays the socialite mother - stranded at the diner awaiting car repairs, and a young father - Tyrese Gibson - lost on his way to a custody hearing. The script gives them small character moments, but they are just killing time until the big action scenes unfold. The first of these occurs as a seemingly-harmless old woman arrives at the diner, begins haranguing Charlie about her unwed state, then manifests into a pointy-toothed, neck-biting, ceiling-crawling demon. Sadly, the best moments of this scene were included in the film's trailer, so any shock value is more or less gone.
The movie hurtles forward from this point: Michael arrives (finally!), having previously fallen to earth and armed himself in a convenient weapons bunker in downtown Los Angeles. Why L.A.? Pretty much so Dennis Quaid will have a setup for a one-liner later on about L.A. cops. There's a noisy fight sequence with everyone barricaded in the diner or up on the roof, firing off machine guns at what appears to be a "legion" of demons arriving in cars, on foot, etc., to surround the place. Here is part of the basic problem with pacing and storytelling in the film: all of the characters grab guns and shoot aimlessly without having answers to any of their most basic questions: Who is this Michael guy? Who are all of those people in the cars? What the hell (or heaven) is going on?
We gradually learn the reason for the standoff, who the players are, and what's really at stake. However, at that point, it's tough to care. "Legion" is a movie that can't even play by its own rules with any consistency, and its construction is journeyman-level at best. Director Scott Stewart, who also co-wrote the script, is fond of providing character development by way of the misplaced monologue: a scene suddenly slows down, a character waxes nostalgic about some moment from the past, and the camera moves in for a dramatic closeup. By the third time it happens, the rhythm begins to feel like a short film parody on "Saturday Night Live". "Legion" also contains a painful muddle of symbolism - for example, in the middle of an attack of angels we get a character strapped to an upside-down cross. It makes no sense from a mythological/biblical perspective; instead, it seems that the screenwriting team simply decided to cherrypick concepts from other horror movies and include them for effect
The less that is said of the painfully literal interpretation of the Archangel Michael as "God's warrior", the better - though it is worth noting that the perpetually uneven tone of the film leads to some unintended laughs, as Michael channels classic movie action heroes and warns the leading lady, "Don't do anything brave". And it seems that a battle of wills between otherworldly creatures such as angels would be resolved in a manner that does not include machine guns and a battle mace (those bullet-proof wings are pretty cool though - and handy!).
"Legion" has an interesting moment here and there - a mention of angels bearing the burden of wings is unexpectedly evocative - but overall, the film is chaotic and frustratingly illogical, and not worth a full viewing. Perhaps in this case, it would be better to stick with the trailer, and take the rest of the story on faith.
| Movie title | Legion |
|---|---|
| Release year | 2010 |
| MPAA Rating | R |
| Our rating | |
| Summary | An archangel rebels against God's plan and falls to Earth - stirring up an unholy mess of a film and squandering an unexpected mix of dedicated actors. |
