"I don't care how long she's been dead...the beyatch just walked on the ceiling." If you find a quote like that to be great dialogue, then you might find Legion to your liking. Odds are, you won't. The film is a muddled mess of half-baked ideas. Big budgets don't always mean that you are getting what you pay for.
Jeep Hanson (Lucas Black) has an unconditional love for Charlie (Adrianne Palicki), a pregnant waitress who works at his father's remote gas station in the desert. The angel Michael (Paul Bettany) has been sent to kill Charlie's baby, which somehow seems to be related to pending apocalypse. If the baby lives, the army of angels that have turned humans into zombies will vanish. Michael has a change of heart and helps fend off the approaching army of angel-human mutants long enough for the child to arrive.
The premise of Legion is silly enough. But the film contains so many muddled messages that it makes no sense. First of all, Legion is the name of a biblical demon. The fact that humans are "possessed" by angels seems hard to believe, especially the way they manifest themselves. The dialogue exchanges between Michael and Gabriel are pure nonsense. And ultimately, I asked myself, what would it matter if this child were born? There is no significance attached to the event. It is never explained. If God wanted the child dead, he could speak it out of existence. Why send an angel to kill the child? The thought process in creating this plot seems incoherent. The dialogue was horrible, the characters one-dimensional and the plot forgettable. The film was a complete mess.
The special effects were excellent. Big explosions and plenty of eerie special effects created some interesting visual imagery. The acting was okay, but not spectacular. None of the performances stood out. In fact, it seemed rather like the actors were going through the motions to me. I can't believe that they managed to talk Dennis Quaid into doing this film. There was no passion for this horrible script. The film earned an easy R for gratuitous violence and language. The intensity of some scenes could cause nightmares for young viewers. So those with young children beware.
Legion started with a faulty script, so the execution never had a chance. The actors seemed to only be in it half-heartedly. The special effects were great, but meaningless. If Peter Schink and Scott Charles Stewart had taken their time to develop a more tangible script, the special effects and decent talent pool would not have been wasted. Not recommended. 4/10.
