Legion (2010) – 7/10

Legion (2010) is an end-of-days film. Not much more to it than that. Doesn’t sound like much but what it does, it does pretty well.

Paul Bettany plays Michael, an angel that has rebelled against God and comes down to earth to protect humanity against an Old Testament style party of pain. In an attempt to protect Charlie, played by Adrianne Palicki, Michael and a slightly wayward team of believers and non-believers fight away seas of possessed individuals.

The whole film is in one location, and it is quite a feat to do that without it getting stale. It could easily have turned into an on-the-road movie about running away from rude angels, but it wasn’t. The performances are what keeps it fresh throughout – the unshakeable confidence of Bettany’s Michael provides a good contrast for the uncertainty and coming-of-age problems of Lucas Black’s Jeep and Adrianne Palicki’s Charlie. The supporting cast are also very strong include Dennis Quaid and Charles S. Dutton, among others.

The timing of Legion is definitely one of its strengths; the plot unfolds nicely and as it builds up to an inevitable huge fight scene at the end, it feels like the right time. The plot isn’t laid out on a plate like some people may want, but it’s easy enough to understand early on – and you can easily just get caught up in the ridiculous violence.

But it has to be said that some of the special effects really don’t do Legion any favours. The spider-like transformation that these possessed people undergo just look a bit silly. The murderous gran looks good, but the ice-cream-man-of-apocalypse (the fifth, less mentioned horseman) is hard to take seriously. Legion could have done with a bit more subtlety in that way.

There are also a lot of convenient little phrases and props throughout the film that it could have done without. Things like ‘I’d love it if someone wiped out this city’ followed by a film which is devoted to angels wiping out that city, and setting it in a place called ‘Paradise Falls’ is just too easy. There isn’t that much of a need for it, just let the film do what it needs to do.

Overall, there are some solid performances throughout, and it is quite an entertaining film. The penultimate fight scene is very well choreographed, but the unnecessary special effects do undermine Legion to some extent. Having grown up in a post-Terminator world it is hard to not make the comparison, and The Terminator does do it better without the religious context.