Sitting down to my review copy of Legion, a film about a rogue angel who comes to Earth to protect humans from God’s wrath, I was looking forward to it. I’d been impressed by the trailer. But trailers, can be deceiving.
The story is fairly simple, several unrelated and slightly odd strangers who happen to be at the same truck stop in the middle of nowhere meet Archangel Michael, who has come to tell them that God has had enough of humanity and has sent forth his angels to kill them all, but he, once a general in the Lord’s army, has come to defend a woman whose unborn child can save humanity and change God’s mind. So the battle commences.
It’s drawn similarities to Demon Knight, which features a guardian trying to stop the last key, containing some of Christ’s blood, falling into the hands of demons. It reminded me a bit of Maximum Overdrive, where a group of people end up at a truck stop being stalked by possessed trucks. That and practically every zombie movie ever made.
Paul Bettany, who plays Michael, seems to have taken the idea that speaking slowly makes him sound important and austere. It doesn’t, it just makes him sound slow. The rest are a rag tag of characters with traits designed to make them less 2D stereotypes, not that it really works.
The biggest disappointment though is there’s not much angel on angel fighting. Surely that’s the unique selling point of this whole movie, we want to see how an angel lays the smackdown. We wait an age while waves of possessed humans saunter up and get chopped down by gunfire, hardly new, then Gabriel arrives and there’s a little bit of fisticuffs, way too late in the day and then it’s over.
Overall it just felt like a waste, a solid action B-movie, yes, a straight to DVD or TV release, fine, but it wasn’t engaging or entertaining enough. It’s beautifully shot and the effects are good, which you’d expect considering the director was primarily known for his effects work on the likes of Superman Returns, Sin City, Die Hard 4 and Iron Man. Unfortunately, he appears to have found his limit with storytelling and needs to stay on the effects in future (although he’s already got another directing gig, in charge of a movie starring Paul Bettany as a religious action crusader… hang on).
All in all then, not one to rush out for.
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