I fought demons once. It was about four years ago after devouring the worst Pho of my life. I went to the bathroom after feeling some rumbly-tumblies and what should happen? A cascade of various ethereal antagonists poured from me like ghost from Spengler’s containment grid. They taunted me, ridiculed me and smelled really bad. So I bitch-slapped them with a bible, threw out a few hail-marys and allowed my heavenly stature to repel the hellspawn. Then, just to spite the devil, I ate more of the Pho-nasty.
The experience I just described to you would make a far superior film than “Legion.” So you know what we’re getting into here, watch the trailer:
[SPOILER WARNING (Though the only way to spoilt this would be to keep showing it in theaters)]
Now it should first be mentioned that Legion is not a demon movie. The Exorcist, Exorcism of Emily Rose, Omen — those are demon movies. Legion is more like a siege movie; think of Assault on Precinct 13, The Alamo or the end of Young Guns. It’s less about scary demons and much more about a few stereotypes trapped in a diner with the world attacking them. But ultimately the film fails at being a good siege film, miserably.
The characters are all ancillary — a feat that in and of itself is somewhat impressive. I think the pregnant girl was supposed to be the lead, but in the way Ana Lucia was a “lead” in LOST, plenty of lines with out any real point. I’m not going to go into too much detail about the various archetypes because there is nothing new to talk about. They all suck. White trash, love-sick idiot. White trash whore. White trash drunk. Crippled old black dude. Young conflicted black dude trying to get his son. Rich people. That’s about it.
If the sunlight was piss, and the angel was a moviegoer, this poster would perfectly describe Legion’s viewing experience.
Point is this: you’ve got ten or so people trapped in a gas station diner in the middle of the desert, but somehow the thousands of demons can’t get inside. Why? I don’t know. When the black-eyed buggers first arrive they are repelled by our cliche cast’s litany of automatic weapons and then, give up. Yeah. They’re like, “Well, fuck this. He’s got guns! There may be an infinite amount of us, but he’s got guns so let’s leave.” It makes no sense at all. Could they have kept coming until the diner was eventually overrun? Yes. But they didn’t, because if they did that the movie would be over and we’re in for another hour so of this tripe.
Some blabbering goes on in the diner about God being angry and wanting to end the world, but our hero Michael (played by the albino from The DaVinci Code), is going to stop him. He’s going to stop God. The God who made him. The God who made everything. Yeah.
Well, some other shitty-shit happens for no apparent reason like the prick in the suit who got his neck chewed on by grandma, well he shows back up, on a cross, hung upside down, with boils. And when his dipshit wife runs out to get him, making a hole in the gas station defenses, he explodes and the boils throw acid all over Dillon from Alien 3 (“Only God can save you know, sistah!”), which was a bummer.
Then we learn that the demons aren’t demons, they’re angels. Whoa. Like Michael. Yet for some reason these angels can’t come straight to Earth like Michael, they have to possess people and look super evil with small baby-shark teeth because Writer/Producer Peter Schink (who has never written a produced film) and Writer/Director Scott Stewart (Director of the Albino once more in the upcoming Priest) said so.
Anyways, the pregnant chick has her baby and the angels have to stop attacking because they can’t attack the baby once born. I don’t know why. It wasn’t a problem attacking and possessing little demon children with balloons earlier in the film, but apparently this kid is special. Why is he special? No fucking clue. But he is. Schink says so.
Gabriel, another archangel, like Michael, shows up with tin-foil wings and decides he’s gonna fuck Michael up. So everyone else runs away and some hillbilly kid magically gets the same tattoos that Michael has while driving away. Craziness!
Gabriel kills Michael. Drunk dad blows up the gas station. Demon/Angels burn. Gabriel goes after white trash tattooed guy, mystical angel-stopping baby and single, mobile-home mom. White trash doesn’t back down and is about to die when… MICHAEL COMES BACK! Crazy, right?!? God realized he was wrong and brought Michael back to kill Gabriel, eve though Gabriel was just doing what he was told! Damn! God’s kind of a dick, huh?
Well hillbilly mom and dumbass take baby and hit the road — with a shitload of guns. Apparently, even though God realized he was wrong, “it’s not over…” Sequel?
The black guy from Transformers is in this, but I don’t know why. He should fire his agent. His agent is a dick. I don’t know him, but he must be.
The washed up quarterback from “Any Given Sunday” was fine, but he kind of acted like he didn’t want to be in the movie. Like he was drunk one night, signed something on accident and had to be in this steamy puddle of crap. All the actors pretty much sucked. The dialogue was the only thing worse than the acting. No, the writing in general was the only thing worse than the acting. Legion is a string of tangents, thrown together like the director worships DaDaism and only read three words from the Bible before deciding to down some Pepto and splatter this film all over America’s chest.
It really is that bad. You can see it if you want, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Just watch the trailer — it’s way better than the movie. Or, better yet, see Book of Eli or rent Pandorum — both of which are great films, recently released.
Until next time,
Mr. Wolff
Back to Semantink
“If the sunlight was piss, and the angel was a moviegoer, this poster would perfectly describe Legion’s viewing experience.”
I laughed out loud in public over this line.
What I have a hard time understanding is that shit like this still manages to get made. Somebody thought the script was good enough to make into a film and then somebody thought the film was good enough not to go straight to video.
I shall file this film in a very special place next to Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever.
Question, though. Was this film worse than Ballistic?
It was a greater disappointment. At least I knew Ecks would be bad from the trailer. I was slightly (albeit ignorantly) hopeful for Legion — I enjoy the Bettany.