Legión de ángeles

Legion (2010) Directed by: Scott Stewart Starring: Paul Bettany, Lucas Black, Adrianne Palicki, Charles S. Dutton, Tyrese Gibson, Kevin Durand, and Dennis Quaid

When God loses faith in Mankind, Archangel Michael (Bettany) loses his faith in God. An out- of-the-way diner becomes an unlikely battleground for the survival of humankind as Michael and a group of strangers defend themselves against God's legion of angels. Michael must protect a mother (Palicki) and her baby, for it is the key to ending the Apocalypse. Let me start off by saying that Legion is not a good movie, however, it is not terrible by any means. Unlike recent biblical horrors (The Unborn comes to mind), Legion tries very hard not to follow the lame clichés of recent horrors; I always commend a film for trying to be good. Unfortunately, it takes itself a little to seriously with God's legion of zombies that are supposed to be possessed by angels. The film also was terribly written, ("What's your beef?" "Simmer down!" "Hold on white boy") with weird scenes that needed some serious editing. Besides the bad script and erratic editing, the acting was terrible. The only exceptions were Paul Bettany (who seemed to have flown into the wrong movie) and Lucas Black (Sling Blade, Friday Night Lights). Everyone else was uninspired and made the bad screenplay look much more terrible than it was. The action scenes are where this film soared. The fight between the two Archangels was incredible, and the visual effects were on par. Overall, Legion is a biblical Assault on Precinct 13. It lacks a good script, editing, cinematography, and acting. I commend it for trying to be less like recent horror films that really shouldn't even call themselves 'films". I think deep down, on the cutting room floor, there was something there, but we don't see it. Legion is by no means horrible, but I can't recommend it.

Rating: 5/10

Enjoying this movie might enrage God more than anything that happens in it .. but seriously though (and hopefully you are not offended), this movie is illogical and has quite a few clichés going for it. You might see where it is going (or "staying" if you will) and you might not like quite a few reveals or the ending. But the good thing about it is, you can sit back and enjoy it, without having to think about certain story related problems or continuity and other stuff.

Of course if you were to use your brain while watching this, one of the things you'd notice, is the fact that Dennis Quaid seems to have a bad choice of movie roles lately. "Bad" if you consider what he is capable of and what he ends up playing (this might actually take under 10% of his abilities to pull it off). But then again, you shouldn't care. You also shouldn't care too much about cardboard cut outs presented as "characters". But if you do, this is were I warned you. Which is more of a warning then someone else gave before unleashing ... but you know the rest or are about to see the rest.

The Prophecy is still the better movie (first one), but for a quick and fun movie, you can always rely on the action on hand here (which is shot very nicely)

God loses the faith in mankind and order the Angel Michael (Paul Bettany) and a legion of angels to bring the Apocalypse on Earth and exterminate the human race. However, Michael rebels against the order and decides to help the humans. Meanwhile in a diner in the middle of nowhere, the owner Bob Hanson (Dennis Quaid) runs the place with his son Jeep (Lucas Black), the pregnant waitress Charlie (Adrianne Palacki) and his friend Percy Walker (Charles S. Dutton). Their costumers are the Anderson family that is stranded in the place waiting that Jeep fixes their BMW and the lonely Kyle Williams (Tyrese Gibson) that is lost and wants to make a phone call. When an old woman named Glady Foster (Jeanette Miller) arrives in the diner, she attacks Howard Anderson (Jon Tenney) on the neck with her shark teeth and she is finally killed by Kyle. When a police car arrives in the spot, the stranger Michael advises that Earth is the battleground between angels and humans and Glady was only a vessel possessed by an angel. Further, Charlie's should be born to save the humankind.

"Legion" is a film with a promising beginning and a disappointing conclusion. I really expected to enjoy this film, but the story has many clichés and there is no explanation why the bastard son of Charlie would save the human race. I do not understand how people that can find religious background in a blockbuster action movie. Further, if they have trauma with this theme, why wast their time watching this movie? My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Legião" ("Legion")

I saw the film last night. It started out like a typical "Survival Horror" film. A group of different people. A mysterious stranger rolls into town. All Hell (excuse me...HEAVEN) breaks loose. Then just as soon as the film got going, someone stabbed a pitchfork in it and turned it over. It totally changed gears.

Once the film first set-piece ended it turned into a slower version of Night of the Living Dead. This is largely due to a plot point that set this rule into action: God put a restraining order on all ZombAngels. They were not allowed to get too close to the main protagonist. So without giving anything away; you can now imagine the pacing of the film up to the climax. Slow and uneventful.

The acting was a caliber above most Horror films. Quaid, Black, and Bettany were all fine. However none were memorable. Even the two main Godsends, Gabriel and Michael, managed to have conflict that was forgotten seconds after the next scene started.

So I would say it's a "Catch on Cable" viewing. Unless you're a huge Bettany fan. Then I would say avoid this like the plague.

Legion is actually a pretty good movie. I had low expectations when I got this film on DVD. The trailers also looked somewhat lame. I only saw this because two of my best friends recommended it to me. Well, I'm glad they did. I actually thought this was going to be a straight up horror movie but it isn't. I'm not a big fan of horror movies. This is more like a action/fantasy movie.

Basically this is another movie about the Apocalypse. God is not happy with the way humans are behaving so he sends an army of angels to wipe out human civilization. But there is one rebellious angel who declares his protection of a mother who is carrying a child who is deemed to be the savior of all mankind.

I am a big fan of Paul Bettany. I have seen almost all his movies and I pretty much liked all of them. My favorite scene from this movie is the grandma scene. I thought that was hilarious.

Overall, this is a great movie. By the way, I'm a religious person and I don't believe this film at all. Some commenters say this is propaganda. This is just a movie that will entertain. I rate this film 9/10.