Legion

Title: Legion
Rating: 2.5/5
Genre: Action, Fantasy
Starring: Paul Bettany, Dennis Quaid, Kevin Durand
Director: Scott Stewart

Its not often that a big name film comes out that actually has me wanting to watch it, sparking my interest sufficiently to keep my eye on the release date until the fateful day I could see if it lives up to the image in my mind, which I expect is probably more than a little different from the average viewers. Now don’t get me wrong, the very notion of a gun-toting angel hiding out in a bar does tickle my fancy more than a little but this was not the potential I was after. It’s the recruitment of the ‘epic speech man’ who made “A Knights Tale” (Bettany) as the lead that had me hoping for something far more interesting than a bad action: the accidental B-Movie.

It is the small time bar in the middle of nowhere that is the convenient location for this tale of terror, with the pregnant waitress knocked up by an unknown father and some mechanic willing to pretend the child is his own, a black guy and the angry bar owner (Quaid) sitting around, its not long before they come under siege by an old lady. Enter Michael (Bettany); an ex-angel defying God’s order to assassinate the unborn child destined to become mankind’s saviour, and unleashing the wrath of – errr…– heaven and its army of demonic angels led by the Archangel Gabriel (Durand) to do what Michael would not.

Yes, the B-Movie potential was unquestionably here, the plot thin and yet so impressively randomly worked. Sadly, this potential was for far too long dragged out by incessant dialogue between poorly acted characters, arguing and discussing, whining and complaining, and whilst not annoying it doesn’t feel as though it had any real purpose beyond filling out the run time between action scenes. This lack of tension that was clearly strived for is clearly an issue for the director trying to make this a far more serious concept than the plot would have you expect. Couple this with the fact that every event that will occur throughout the films course is predictable within the opening ten minutes, and we have more than a couple of issues with regard to the inconsistent pace. I wasn’t looking for the most originality with this but there should be limits as to how generic a film should be allowed to be.

And yet this is niot a without merit; Bettany’s surprising role as a serious actor shows budding potential beyond what I’d have expected, with a couple more epic speeches that still leave you hanging from each word like few other actors are capable of. There are some small twists in the early action scenes that exemplify how the film should have played out, demonising ultimately innocuous characters and the action scenes themselves proved to be more interesting than many, never resorting to the frustrating ‘shaky cam’ or frenetic cutting that prevents you from discerning what’s actually happening, stylish winged moves and blood galore as varied and multi-faceted scenes commence. For a first time effort there certainly appears to be some ideas running about his head, and sure, you can pick out where they came from (the bar from “Dusk Til Dawn”, “the Mummy” like screams, the entrance of “The Terminator” and so on) but if he could kept up the action for the length of the film this could have been a winner. Oh well, maybe next time…