The end of the world is nigh. God has grown weary of his creation and decreed that mankind must be destroyed. But archangel Michael has other ideas and fights back, defending a besieged group of survivors at a remote diner, one of whom is destined to give birth to humanity's new saviour. Can they defeat a legion of the possessed intent on their destruction?
What's the first commandment of action movies? Thou shalt not bore thy audience, something Scott Stewart seems to have forgotten in his feature directorial debut. Legion offers a tempting theological riff on John Carpenter's Assault On Precinct 13 but the reality is rather more mundane. What should be a fun action movie fails to live up to its premise, despite a solid performance from Paul Bettany as a benign heavenly version of The Terminator.
It's rather churlish to criticise the film's clichéd characters in what's a shamelessly B-movie offering but Legion repeatedly grinds to a halt whenever it attempts to develop the bland characters. This uneven narrative momentum is the movie's main flaw, although it wouldn't be so bad if the dialogue was interesting. But it's hard to care about the interactions between the cast and their personal issues. If only there'd been better action and less exposition, or at the very least an attempt to develop the intriguing religious themes, not least Michael's comment that he doesn't want to give God "what he asks for, but what he needs".
Legion should have delivered all out entertainment of biblical proportions, angels smiting and guns blazing in equal measure. However it consistently falls short on pretty much every level; after enduring an overly familiar series of bangs and punch-ups an angelic showdown arrives too late in the day to reignite any interest. Add this one to a long list of lazy mediocre genre movies.
