Légion : L'Armée des anges

God loses the faith in mankind and order the Angel Michael (Paul Bettany) and a legion of angels to bring the Apocalypse on Earth and exterminate the human race. However, Michael rebels against the order and decides to help the humans. Meanwhile in a diner in the middle of nowhere, the owner Bob Hanson (Dennis Quaid) runs the place with his son Jeep (Lucas Black), the pregnant waitress Charlie (Adrianne Palacki) and his friend Percy Walker (Charles S. Dutton). Their costumers are the Anderson family that is stranded in the place waiting that Jeep fixes their BMW and the lonely Kyle Williams (Tyrese Gibson) that is lost and wants to make a phone call. When an old woman named Glady Foster (Jeanette Miller) arrives in the diner, she attacks Howard Anderson (Jon Tenney) on the neck with her shark teeth and she is finally killed by Kyle. When a police car arrives in the spot, the stranger Michael advises that Earth is the battleground between angels and humans and Glady was only a vessel possessed by an angel. Further, Charlie's should be born to save the humankind.

"Legion" is a film with a promising beginning and a disappointing conclusion. I really expected to enjoy this film, but the story has many clichés and there is no explanation why the bastard son of Charlie would save the human race. I do not understand how people that can find religious background in a blockbuster action movie. Further, if they have trauma with this theme, why wast their time watching this movie? My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Legião" ("Legion")

God has lost faith in man and he sends his legion of angels to bring on the Apocalypse. Archangel Michael (Paul Bettany) comes down to Earth to stop it. Jeep Hanson (Lucas Black) and his father Bob (Dennis Quaid) are taking care of pregnant Charlie (Adrianne Palicki). They work at Paradise Falls diner in the middle of nowhere with Percy Walker (Charles S. Dutton). Kyle Williams (Tyrese Gibson) has come to buy some drugs. Sandra (Kate Walsh) and Howard Anderson (Jon Tenney) are waiting for their car with sexual daughter Audrey (Willa Holland). Communication is cut off from the outside world. The group of strangers must battle all of heaven to save the world.

This movie has lots of interesting ideas and visual takes on this world. It's a shoot-em-up horror crossed with a graphic novel. The problem is that it's extremely underwritten. There is nothing to the story and the dialog is unimaginative. Otherwise it has good action and a few good actors. It's a bit of B-action.

Legion (2010) Directed by: Scott Stewart Starring: Paul Bettany, Lucas Black, Adrianne Palicki, Charles S. Dutton, Tyrese Gibson, Kevin Durand, and Dennis Quaid

When God loses faith in Mankind, Archangel Michael (Bettany) loses his faith in God. An out- of-the-way diner becomes an unlikely battleground for the survival of humankind as Michael and a group of strangers defend themselves against God's legion of angels. Michael must protect a mother (Palicki) and her baby, for it is the key to ending the Apocalypse. Let me start off by saying that Legion is not a good movie, however, it is not terrible by any means. Unlike recent biblical horrors (The Unborn comes to mind), Legion tries very hard not to follow the lame clichés of recent horrors; I always commend a film for trying to be good. Unfortunately, it takes itself a little to seriously with God's legion of zombies that are supposed to be possessed by angels. The film also was terribly written, ("What's your beef?" "Simmer down!" "Hold on white boy") with weird scenes that needed some serious editing. Besides the bad script and erratic editing, the acting was terrible. The only exceptions were Paul Bettany (who seemed to have flown into the wrong movie) and Lucas Black (Sling Blade, Friday Night Lights). Everyone else was uninspired and made the bad screenplay look much more terrible than it was. The action scenes are where this film soared. The fight between the two Archangels was incredible, and the visual effects were on par. Overall, Legion is a biblical Assault on Precinct 13. It lacks a good script, editing, cinematography, and acting. I commend it for trying to be less like recent horror films that really shouldn't even call themselves 'films". I think deep down, on the cutting room floor, there was something there, but we don't see it. Legion is by no means horrible, but I can't recommend it.

Rating: 5/10

The Angel Michael (Paul Bettany) plunges from heaven to Earth, after which he cuts off his wings and gets busy with gathering up an arsenal of weapons. In the meantime in an god-forsaken diner in the middle of New Mexico several lost travellers and the diner's employees surprisingly become a central point to the apocalypse. All because of the unborn baby of the diner's hapless waitress. Soon people possessed by angels appear and only Michael's arrival helps stave off the impending doom...

Even with the above basic premise it is easy to figure out where this movie is going. It that sense it is basically a homage to the brilliant Prophecy series (brilliant more in content than acting or direction). Now I must say that I am extremely surprised by the low grades the movie has on IMDb, given that so many worse movies have ratings in their 6s or 7s...

There are definitely things not right in this movie with the whole middle sequence surprisingly poor and borderline terrible in its lack of logic - possessed suddenly stop attacking and let the one thing they are preventing from happening happen... That said the acting was at least good and characters are well presented. Add to that a very good fight sequence with the angel Gabriel and I found this movie a good if uninspiring watch.

I saw the film last night. It started out like a typical "Survival Horror" film. A group of different people. A mysterious stranger rolls into town. All Hell (excuse me...HEAVEN) breaks loose. Then just as soon as the film got going, someone stabbed a pitchfork in it and turned it over. It totally changed gears.

Once the film first set-piece ended it turned into a slower version of Night of the Living Dead. This is largely due to a plot point that set this rule into action: God put a restraining order on all ZombAngels. They were not allowed to get too close to the main protagonist. So without giving anything away; you can now imagine the pacing of the film up to the climax. Slow and uneventful.

The acting was a caliber above most Horror films. Quaid, Black, and Bettany were all fine. However none were memorable. Even the two main Godsends, Gabriel and Michael, managed to have conflict that was forgotten seconds after the next scene started.

So I would say it's a "Catch on Cable" viewing. Unless you're a huge Bettany fan. Then I would say avoid this like the plague.