Movie Review - 'Legion'

Legion Starring Paul Bettany, Adrianne Palicki, and Dennis Quaid Directed by Scott Stewart Rated R

Where oh where to begin with Legion? Actually not beginning at all is your best course of action. And, perhaps in a stroke of irony, the film itself appears to have advanced no further than its beginning, the "what if" that sets it all in motion. Because of that, Legion is less effective as a movie than it is as a series of still photographs. Pick a production still, a frame from any scene you like, and it's probably more satisfying than the film itself. Did it have to be this way? You know, it probably did, actually, because from start to finish, Legion cuts with the precision of a spork. The story is tripe: God wants to wipe out the human race, so just deal with it. However, you'd expect him to have a better plan of attack than this, singling out the unborn savior of our kind, which deserves a little more explanation because, well, I thought mankind already had one of those. An archangel named Michael (Paul Bettany) falls to Earth to initially carry out his boss' wishes, and that means killing Charlie (Adrianne Palicki) a waitress at a greasy spoon in the middle of nowhere before the child's birth. But the angel changes his mind, choosing to save the child and, therefore, humanity. God, who is clearly in an Old Testament phase at this point, does not take kindly to Michael's decision, but chooses the worst possible soldiers to help another angel (Kevin Durand) do his bidding, including an octogenarian and an ice cream man. Why do they have to transform into fanged monster types? Seems like a waste of resources. That's a recurring theme throughout Legion, which has too many pointless effects, too many plot holes, too many characters, and too many reasons to hate it. Actually, to call them "characters" is a compliment;they're caricatures, all in service of a plot that has very little inspiration and no aspirations. In fact, writer-director Scott Stewart seems to work his story into his action scenes instead of the other way around. The worst sin he commits on those grounds is not even putting in the effort to give us good violence. Bettany, as he tends to do, rises above the material here, but not enough to hide how bad everything around him is. I'd say the worst offender is Dennis Quaid, in part because he shouldn't be. He can find something in this to cling to, but as the expectant grandfather of the savior of mankind, Quaid's performance is entirely mailed in, and there's not enough going on between Palicki, Tyrese Gibson, and Lucas Black to devote much attention to them. That's a shame, because they seem more invested than anyone else in spite of their characters' lack of dimensionality. The Book of Eli, released a week ago, also baked in some Biblical overtones (or maybe they were undertones). That film had some shaky visuals and didn't have a strong ending, but at least it offered us something for about an hour. This film is downright silly by comparison, a lackluster hodgepodge of pieces that don't fit together, and there's no effort made to separate the good from the bad.

Comments

[Orinn]

I wanted it to be better, I expected it to be this.

[Emo]

How very disappointing. I really like Paul Bettany. Guess I'll scratch this one off my list.

[Mscott]

Well...when i heard the plot i knew this movie wasn't going any where. If God wants to wipe us out then it is done! I don't think angels would stop it...

[mdamien13]

I haven't read one good review for this flick so it looks like I'll be seeing something else this weekend. I'll just rewatch The Prophecy to see how a damn good homicidal angel movie is supposed to be done.

[Vince]

But how unintentionally hilarious was it Colin?? That's the reason why I want to see it- because it looks horribly awesome.

When I saw the grandma crawl on the ceiling like she was a spider-monkey in the trailer, I couldn't get enough, so I'm hoping the movie lives up to my low, low standards.

[Get The Big Picture]

I wish I could say it was hilarious, unintentionally or not. More horrible than horribly awesome. Incidentally, my high watermark for unintentional comedy is Popcorn, the wretched early 90s slasher flick. Amazingly enough, it's like they edited that film to leave space for audience comments. It's a near-perfect MST3K movie.

This one is just a dullard.

[Doug]

Book of Eli was much better. IMO this film couldve been good, it had a somewhat Intriguing idea. But the way they executed this idea was just plain bad. Im not a big stickler when it comes to movies and I was expecting a decent popcorn action flick. It wasnt too awful but the many many plot holes in this movie stuck out like a sore thumb. If anything rent it

[Jeremy]

Adrianne palicki did this instead of more Friday night lights?