Legion

"I don't believe in God.
That's okay. He doesn't believe in you, either".
-Dialogue exchange from Legion.

Legion starts out so spectacularly silly, it's almost a shame that it loses faith in itself and becomes conventional. An apocalypse movie that starts out with possessed old ladies crawling the walls and screaming obscenities, as well as possessed ice cream truck drivers, should not end with martial arts fights, car chases, and explosions. But it does, sadly. Co-writer and director Scott Stewart (a special effects artist making his feature film debut) gives his film a sense of self-awareness early on, and loses it.

Things kick off when an angel named Michael (Paul Bettany) drops from Heaven, cuts off his wings, grabs some weapons, and swipes a police car to drive to a small roadside diner and service station in the middle of the desert. It's here that a young woman named Charlie (Adrianne Palicki) works and lives in a trailer behind the diner. She's eight months pregnant, and doesn't know that the child she carries will be mankind's last hope. It seems that God has lost faith in humanity, and is sending an army of angels led by Gabriel (Kevin Durand) down to Earth to wipe out all life. Her future child is the only hope we have for survival, though it's never really explained why, or what he is destined to accomplish. The angel Michael thinks that humanity still has hope, so he has disobeyed orders, and is fighting to protect Charlie and the few innocent bystanders that become trapped in the diner when the opposing angels begin surrounding the place.

The angels possess humans, and attempt to pass themselves off as being normal. In one memorable scene, an angel possesses a little old lady with a walker, and tries to act casual. She doesn't get very far, though, and arouses the suspicions of everyone else in the diner when she starts screaming that everyone there will die and burn. The angel gives up the charade, turns into a screaming monstrosity, and starts climbing the walls and ceilings. The owner of the diner (Dennis Quaid) doesn't know what to make of any of this, until Michael shows up, and explains the whole situation. Even then, Quaid's character is not convinced when Michael starts talking about angels. You'd think seeing a little old lady grow fangs, rip the lungs out of an unfortunate bystander with her teeth, and climb the ceiling, blood dripping from her jowls, would be enough to convince the guy that hey, maybe something's not right here.

Charlie's reaction to the news that she will give birth to humanity's savior is priceless. When Michael informs her of her destiny, she replies with, "I'm just a waitress. I don't even own a car"! I was having a lot of fun with Legion right around this point. It was the kind of gloriously stupid B-movie that I can enjoy. I silently hoped that it could keep this momentum, and not fall flat. It was right around this point that the movie did indeed fall flat. While never unwatchable, the movie just seems to stop trying, and goes for the conventional approach. We get a lot of shoot outs as the survivors barricade themselves within the diner, and we get a couple car chases that are done well enough, but never raise the excitement level like they should. We also never get a moment quite like the angel possessing the old lady. We get one that seems promising, when a possessed ice cream man threatens the survivors, but nothing is done with him.

Speaking of the survivors, they're your usual stock group. There's Jeep (Lucas Black), who's the son of the diner's owner and an all around nice guy, so he falls into the hero role. There's also a dysfunctional family with a troubled teen daughter (Willa Howard) that's run into car trouble, a religious cook (Charles S. Dutton) who begins to question his faith, and a shady guy (Tyrese Gibson) passing through. Most of these characters spend a lot of time looking out windows, or picking off any angels that get close to the diner, so we never get to know them that well. Of the characters, Jeep obviously plays the biggest role, as he protects Charlie. The ending also hints that he will play some kind of part in the war for humanity to come, but it's not very clear on the details.

I started out watching this movie with a big goofy grin on my face. This could have been so much more if the filmmakers had just had the courage to embrace the silliness of it all. Instead, Legion cops out by taking itself seriously during the second half. If ever there was a movie to not take itself seriously, a movie where the apocalypse is battled out in a roadside diner is that movie.

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