Written by: Peter Schink & Scott Stewart
Starring: Paul Bettany, Lucas Black, Tyrese Gibson, Adrianne Palicki, Charles S. Dutton, Jon Tenney
Rating: [1/5]
The end of the world gets prophesied aplenty within religious groups and other beliefs as they prepare their congregation for what will happen at the end of this whole human experiment. This appears in various ways depending on one’s belief but never did I think God’s lost faith in humanity would look the way Legion posits through its plot. While having some small moments of something redeemable, this film is mostly a complete disaster.
Arriving at a diner in the middle of nowhere, Michael (Paul Bettany), the fallen archangel, finds the pregnant Charlie (Adrianne Palicki) and warns everyone at the diner that hordes of individuals will come to kill her baby as God has given up hope on humanity. With everyone rightfully confused, they see what he means as they try to fend off these enemies coming their way.
When observing the story play out in Legion, one cannot help but have many questions as to the decision-making that led to this story. We have an archangel who has come down to Earth in defiance of God’s orders where instead of killing this baby meant to be the savior of humanity he wants to protect it. Therefore, God somehow decides to send some scarily demonic creatures towards these people protecting this baby in the efforts to kill them all. One then has to question why this baby serves as the savior of humanity other than the obvious of Charlie being a stand-in for the Virgin Mary, despite our female lead being quite the opposite. Strange questions overall that do not help build a foundation for some unfortunate filmmaking overall.
Of the few good elements this feature has to offer, it mostly transpires in the initial moments of these demonic looking creatures becoming prevalent. This happens with the seemingly kind old lady who appears in the diner and then turns into a monster they need to take care of, but the best appears in the ice cream man, who appears in his little truck and presents himself as the danger we know him to be. A good way for the film to utilize two elements we typically associate with innocence, utilized as a way to terrorize these characters. God surely has a sense of humor, as this version almost makes the Old Testament tales look like a walk in the park.
However, these compliments consist of about 3 minutes with the rest of the runtime of this feature delivering some truly horrid stuff. Moving beyond the shoddy framework presented, nothing about this film works in driving home any entertainment. That’s the least that they could have done if they were going to outright fail at this larger metaphor going on about this rebellious angel who has a love for humanity. It just leaves dumb characters making mind-numbingly bad decisions, even after acknowledging the situation they are in. The scene where Kyle (Tyrese Gibson) chased after a little girl he saw in danger truly just hammered home the nail right in the coffin of this deeply unserious film.
Then we get to the acting on display, where none of these actors really had much of a chance, and even then they miserably failed in rising to the occasion with this material. This happens mostly with all of them other than Paul Bettany who at least does not embarrass himself with his portrayal of Michael. He still gets given a woefully dull character but at the very least the man came in and earned his paycheck. The less said about the others, the better, in all frankness.
A simple concept in all reality, Legion has a group of humans in a small diner surrounded by nothing but roads that serve as the last stand of humanity. We have stand-ins for various religious figures like Mary, Joseph, and even a baby Jesus inside the belly of Charlie. We have the battling of angels as they try to interpret the demands and the wishes of the one who commands them also leading to some questions. Even then, this feature takes its parallel and severely underachieves in even getting the most basic entertainment out of this woefully conceptualized idea. An unmitigated disaster that left everyone looking worse for their involvement with it.
Films with Josh 
