Paul Bettany is nailing her as we speak.Pork Chop Express here, checkin' in from a roadside diner called Paradise Falls off the Mojave Desert. Now I'm not sure the thinking behind the movie Legion, a mishmash of zombie imagery, angels, and Sarah Connor lore, but I'll be damned if it's not watchable. I mean, it's not good. Far from it. But it's got replay value in abundance. It's pretty much what I expected it to be: nonsensical, stupid, and kind of fun.
Legion's premise is simple: God's pissed, and decides to send Angels instead of another flood to get rid of humanity. Apparently only the soon-to-be-born bastard son of a waitress with loose morals can save the world. So Michael, an angel played by the normally awesome Paul Bettany, has to protect her until she gives birth. And to do so, he uses the ultimate weapon against angels: guns. Yes, guns. Apparently that's all you need to kill angels who act more like demons. So in Paradise Falls, the isolated desert diner in which Charlie (Adrianne Palicki), the aforementioned waitress with loose morals works, the staff and what few customers they have hole up under the leadership of Michael, who has forsaken the angelic life in order to defy God because it's about giving Him "what he needs" and not "what he wants." Right. So the angels possess human bodies and try to attack the diner in zombie-like fashion, only to be repulsed by gunfire and dry quips. To add to that clusterfuck of a plot, the whole world is facing Armageddon. At least I think it is. The film doesn't really make it clear, but the television in the diner isn't working so you know it's gotta be Serious. And that's what bugged me throughout the movie: has the world gone to hell? I'm not sure if it was budget constraints that prevented us from seeing the world go through Armageddon, but I somehow doubt it was the filmmaker's attempt to paint a narrow, personal, intimate portrait of these few survivors while keeping them isolated from the outside world. But maybe I'm wrong.
To call the film uneven would be an understatement. The story is absolutely unbelievable and the emotional arc(s) are laughable. When Percy, the one-handed cook played by Roc himself, Charles Dutton, confronts would-be thug Kyle, played by Tyrese Gibbons, about a gun in Kyle's possession, I had to roll my eyes. How many times have we seen this archetypal confrontation between the older, experienced black man and the younger black man from the streets? It's almost insulting in such a generic movie. Or how about when a mother blames her daughter for their need to move which leads their car to have a breakdown and them to be stranded at Paradise Falls? I mean, really, I understand that the characters need to be, well, characterized, but damn. I just wanted them to shut up. You see everything coming from a mile away, including the lackluster climax.
Cost Breakdown:
9.00 on a ticket
4.00 on gas
13.00 well wasted. I'll call this film watchably bad. The best parts were the trailers in the beginning, when I laughed readily at Macgruber and Death at a Funeral, and got excited for Iron Man 2, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and The A-Team. I wouldn't mind watching Legion again on TV or something, but I don't think anyone should actually waste money on it.
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