Rating: *1/2 starsLegion begins and ends with the same bit of narration. The lead character Charlie (Adrianne Palicki) relates a story her mother told her about a prophesized time when God would pull the plug on humanity and wipe out the whole lot of us, which, I can only imagine, is not the best bedtime story to feed a kid. Anyway, the young Charlie asks her mom why God would suddenly chuck his bolt and decide to be done with the human race after investing thousands of years in us. "I don't know,” Charlie’s mom said, “Maybe He was just tired of all the bulls**t." Conforting. But sadly this little bonbon is an indication about how much thought the filmmakers put into Legion.
Legion is a muddled mess that barely even pays lip service to Biblical lore in telling an overtly Biblical tale. Sure, it’s set in a desert and the things being fought, were told, are angels, who are under the command of God to slaughter each and every one of us, but there are several inescapable plot holes. First, why are the angels acting like zombies? Two, why was the old lady from the trailer so demonic in look and action? Three, what was it that made God say “that tears it” in regard to the human race? Question four though is in regards to Charlie’s unborn child. The one that the former archangel Michael (Paul Bettany) says is going to be humanity’s new saviour. Uh, didn’t God get the memo that this new messiah was on the way?
Populating this world of half-assed plot development is a rather sterling, though ultimately wasted, cast of actors. Dennis Quaid plays the atheist, the guy that says that he doesn’t even believe in God and He can shove his apocalypse. Charles S. Dutton plays his best friend the Believer, so naturally he’s one of the first to die. Tyrese Gibson, well, I’m not sure what the deal with his character was, but he was packing heat anyway. And Lucas Haas plays Jeep, the slow-witted young fellow who loves Charlie deeply even though she can’t return those feelings (I also assume that he’s an unknown relation of Sarah Palin given the low IQ and ridiculous first name). Basically, it’s every stock character known to screenwriting for a post-apocalyptic stand-off movie; sans a rendition of “Spirit in the Sky” on the soundtrack.
Now normally I’m a sucker for stuff like this, even lousy PA (or post-apocalypic) movies have escapist value. But Legion was just infuriating for its unanswered questions, and it’s seemingly reckless disregard for crafting a coherent story. I can only assume that this is a story that the filmmakers were sitting on for so long that they knew it backwards and forwards enough that they thought they could ditch the little details, like the Harry Potter adaptations. I’m no Jerry Falwell by any stretch of the imagination, but it seemed like the whole religious angle was either a convenient framework for a zombie movie, or everybody was just too lazy to do even a Wiki search level of research in the subject matter. Perhaps most damning (pun intended) is that this came out about on the heels of The Book of Eli, which is PA done right. I know that Armageddon is en vogue right now, but event direct-to-video stuff is more lively, not to mention inspired, then Legion.
