Legion (2010)

Review by Josh Felty



Every now and then a really good "angels versus demons" flick comes along. The Prophecy series, at the first couple, were quite good. Disturbing, not only due to the graphic imagery of a war amongst angels here on terra firma, but because there's something mesmerizing about Christopher Walken portraying archangel Gabriel. Walken's a golden character actor, like Bill Moseley or M. Emmett Walsh. Classic face, debonair charisma, with something evilly delicious lurking beneath the skin.

Legion, while an acceptably dark yet hopeful apocalyptic yarn, was not quite as impressionable to me as The Prophecy movies. Granted, that series really hit its high mark around the time of the second one and was more concerned with churning out the next one, no matter who the lead was. At the beginning of Legion, we're introduced to all we need to know in the first fifteen minutes. Dennis Quaid's character runs a garage/store/greasy spoon out in the middle of the desert, an ideal locale for Armageddon. There's a middle aged couple waiting to get their car fixed; they have a teenage daughter and no, she's not Meghan Fox. Tyrese Gibson stepped out from his Transformers showing to play yet another token black actor who gets taken out a.k.a. sacrificed to show off the bad guys' chops.

The main guy's the archangel Michael, played here by Paul Bettany, who is typically quite a remarkable actor (A Beautiful Mind and Master & Commander come to mind for some reason) but seems to be either muted by the otherworldly badassedness of this character, quelled by the simplistic writing of Michael, or maybe he just didn't care. I don't know. All I do know is that despite all its inherent flaws, Legion still entertained me from start to finish. I mean, we start off with this sweet old granny driving up, shuffling into the diner, and taking a table to herself; she then lays into some dude's neck and crawls around on the ceiling like a black widow spider. Soon after, Michael the Archangel pulls up in an LAPD cruiser, whispers "They're here", and makes merry with a trunkload full of an assortment of machine gun weaponry. Apparently, Michael's pissed off the Big Guy after he finds of plans to annihilate all of humanity. Michael's basically escaped from Heaven in order to save the child of Charlie (played by refreshingly beautiful Adrianne Palicki, who reminds me of Eva Mendes for some reason). But he must first help bust the heads of zombie-like hordes, all possessed by other angels.

I gotta hand it to the effects people behind Legion: there's really something for everybody. You have sun-blistered crucifixion, soul ripping shotgun blasts, and a truly disturbing ice-cream truck driver guy. You can tell it's CG, but this one's so much fun you won't care in the end. Plus, there's hand-to-hand combat scenes between Gabriel and Michael that are quite epic and some very interesting design all around. Part of me really wants to gush outloud, but really Legion kinda left me feeling cheated. The possibilities of this one seemed endless, but that shows you what good hype can do. Most of the characters were stock write-ups from the bowels of every Michael Bay blockbuster, nobody to really invest any empathy toward other than Dennis Quaid as an actor. He's in everything, typically playing the frustrated father or something. I really wanted to see Paul Bettany break through and really do something with Michael, but that left me feeling dirty and used also. Bettany's truly a talented actor, Oscar-nominated I think.

But every now and then, a talent's gotta sell out to make a buck. Even if the money's soiled with angel sweat and/or sparkly vampires.