Eye Candy #398 - "Legion"

Legion:  This movie is maligned probably more than it deserves.  It had a great preview - creepy old lady turns into a creepy monster and tries to kill people in a diner.  That’s a pretty good hook.  And I’ve certainly witnessed worse films that made more money.  It’s an intriguing premise - God grows tired of mankind and sends his angels to scourge the earth.  Archangel Michael (Paul Bettany) falls from grace to save a young unwed mother and her unborn child who child is the savior of mankind because he still has faith in mankind.  Unfortunately it degenerates from there into fairly pedestrian territory, as the mother of the child is a waitress at a remote gas station a la Stuckeys.  She and the other people who happen to be there (Dennis Quaid, Charles Dutton, Lucas Black, Tyrese Gibson, and Kate Walsh, so the talent pool here is fairly deep for a movie of this kind) fight back against the angel monsters, so it degenerates into a “siege” picture.  Like “Maximum Overdrive”.  Like “Feast”.  Like the “Alien” movies.  Like “Zulu”.  Like "Home Alone".  Like dozens of other films. So then it becomes how you stage the siege that determines how successful the film is.  And unfortunately there is nothing here unique or special to separate it from the herd.   They introduce some disturbing villains…and then immediately kill them.  And there isn’t a whole lot of ‘splaining going on either about the “rules” of this world - apparently you can kill angelic creatures with bullets.  That’s awful shortsighted of God.  I even thought that Kevin Durand as the villain Gabriel would be a huge disappointment, but I was wrong, as he did alright as the conflicted Gabriel.  I didn’t dislike the movie, but it’s definitely middle of the pack.  Woodchuck sez, “You may like it, you may not.”