Legion

This movie has gotten a lot of flak, but given the low budget, I think the cast and crew did an exemplary job. It's reminiscent of the Dirty Dozen meets Predator meets Aliens, with a group of futuristic soldiers slated for execution given a last chance at redemption by going on a dangerous mission. Most of the characters are somewhat two-dimensional, but each has a few particular traits that seperate them from the rest of the group. It's a solid movie the whole way through, and might be worth your time to watch.

Lets start with the fact that a lot of movies have been successfully produced using the plot from another film, here is a classic exception to that rule. Dirty Dozen was a classic war movie working with the premise that 12 convicted criminals , with nothing to lose, would be perfect fighting machines for a covert operation. Legion tries to put a 21st century Sci Fi spin on this concept, and not only does it fall short, it never gets off the ground.

With a couple of recognisable names in the cast, it promised to be at least an average film, but, boy! were we wrong. Classic heart throb Troy Donahue acted like some one had placed a carrot in his underwear, and then sprayed his face with some form of transparent plastic compound, only his eyeballs seemed to move.

Corey Feldman, as a computer nerd, was obviously told that as long as he wore thick rimmed glasses, that would be all the method acting he would require. Lucky for him these advanced computers of the future consisted of giant flashing lights on a huge panel ( all that was missing was some reel to reel tape spinning in the background)

Expatriate Australian Rick Springfield, as an actor makes a damn fine singer songwriter, at least he gets a little more action than he did when he was in Battlestar Galactica. As Lorne Greens' son, he gets killed off in the first five minutes. He is probably wishing that he had suffered the same fate in this turkey.

The props were farcical, the setting was obviously an old factory which we are told to believe is a space station, the plot, script, and directing are abysmal, but the actual space monster is the crowning glory to this all. We are not permitted to see this creature till the very end of the film, and you can see why. Loosely based on an extra from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, this creatures face refuses to show any animation, even when it speaks, nothing moves. If they panned back a bit, I swear you would see the ventriloquist with his hand inside a puppet, drinking a glass of water.

This film is in trouble, not bad enough to be a cult classic, not good enough for human consumption..A Real Shocker!!

This one was like "Aliens" without the aliens... or maybe it was more like a sci-fi slasher movie... Yes, that's it, a sci-fi slasher B-flick. Some folks say that this movie steals the basic premise of "The Dirty Dozen" and puts it in outer space. Indeed, here we have a group of convicts turned into soldiers and sent off to a planet to secure a space station (or something). Amongst them are a religious fanatic female military doctor, a drug-addict/rapist, a nymphomaniac, and Corey Feldman as a computer nerd. The space station looks, of course, like an old factory. You know the drill: all of them get slaughtered (in a not too bloody way) one by one. Lots of running around, lots of shooting and near the end you won't even care about who's doing the killing or if the mutant make-up looks cool or not. I managed to sit through it without too many problems, so I guess it could have been worse.

Why do folks bother to make such films? Here was have a Dirty Dozen plot with the Doz led, not by Lee Marvin, but a very hot babe who used to be the spotted chick on some Star Trek spinoff. As usual in horror movies, they enter a sealed place and stupidly separate so they can be picked off one by one by a yellow light. There is utterly no intelligence to any of this. I just got weary as the chars insist on going off alone even though not one time will the yellow light attack any but a single. Yet these futuristic bozos can't see this pattern. Worth 80 minutes of your time if you have nothing else to do.

I put Legion on my screen mainly because of Terry Farrall (mostly known for her role as Jadzia Dax in Deep Space Nine). Production is rather low budget, story and action is somewhat okay. For a higher rate the production value is too low and the action subpar. What you get is a rather tame mix of movies like Doom (2005), Screamers (1995), Soldier (1998), Ghosts of Mars (2001) and the like. My rate a 4 + 1 bonus for Terry Farrall's appearance.