Legion (2010) Review

Legion (2010) Review

The trailer for Legion is one of the most memorable trailers from this past decade, because it shows a scene where an old woman speaks to a pregnant waitress at a diner, leading to some harsh dialogue from the old woman, and the reveal that she’s a vicious wall-crawling demonic creature that says everyone is going to die. It’s an unexpected, funny-yet-scary scene, but makes the rest of the trailer extremely unremarkable in comparison. 

It’s no surprise that this scene is the best one from the movie, but Legion actually wasn’t as unwatchable as I had expected. The plot concerns an archangel falling from heaven and travelling to a remote diner in the Mojave Desert to protect a woman who is going to give birth to the saviour of humankind. The archangel, named Michael, is played by Paul Bettany, who is currently most well-known for playing Vision in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but the rest of the cast is pretty solid, too, with genre veterans like Charles S. Dutton (Alien 3) and Dennis Quaid (Jaws 3-D). The actress who plays the pregnant waitress isn’t that great, which is unfortunate, because she ends up having a pivotal role. 

Basically, God is pissed, so he’s sent down his angels to possess people and get them to try to destroy humanity and bring about an apocalypse of biblical proportions, but Michael has taken it upon himself to give humanity the second chance it deserves. It sounds pretty original, and I find the idea of angels possessing people instead of demons interesting, but Legion is extremely derivative of other apocalyptic stories, like Night of the Living Dead and The Terminator. Most of the movie takes place at the diner, with the characters fighting off waves of the possessed, and there are too many dialogue scenes in between the good stuff. Luckily, there is some good stuff. 

This isn’t a movie that takes itself too seriously, but doesn’t go overboard and become too goofy, either. There are some funny lines, and the horror scenes are taken pretty far, with the old lady scene being the pinnacle, though it happens fairly early on. The idea of an angel gunning down people possessed by other angels with black eyes and pointy, shark-like teeth is pretty outrageous, but also pretty entertaining. When Michael’s archangel brother Gabriel shows up, things get even more interesting, but then the ending falls flat, which is too bad, but at least doesn’t negate everything that comes before it. 

Legion is more action than horror, and less original that it could have been, but has enough twists along the way to make it worth watching. Just don’t expect anything great; it’s a piece of schlock, but well-polished schlock.