Legion

So, Legion. Bored at 12am and this movie was showing on some TV channel. I sat down to watch it with one of my friends.

• One thing right out the gate, the definition of legion, because I didn't know what it was either. A legion is a large military force. This will make sense later if you read the Movie Evaluation below.
• The movie is justly rated R for strong violence and language. It got a little confusing watching it on public television seeing as they were censoring out a lot of the sparse dialogue.
• It runs at exactly 100 minutes, leaving plenty of room for them to have finished explaining the plot and wrapping up a lot of loose ends, but alas, they did not.
• It is listed under the genres of action, horror, and fantasy. All of them perfectly logical for what's in store.
• The official movie website in case you're curious.

Plot: Legion is basically about the Apocalypse. God has sent his angels down to exterminate the world. Michael has fallen in order to save humanity. In order to do this, he must protect a young pregnant waitress, Charlie, so that she can give birth to the savior of mankind. There's a lot of gun fights, a lot of blood, and some scary parts, but it's not too scary. The plot line is a little obvious and you can kind of guess what's going to happen throughout the whole movie. They could have done something great with this movie, but it seems like the directors kind of gave up and didn't fully explore the plot like they could have. So if you're looking for an action movie with a lot of, well, action and less plot, this is for you.

Characters: Where the movie lacks in plot, it makes up in cast. The angel Michael is portrayed by Paul Bettany, who most of you might know as Silas from The DaVinci Code (pretty sure he voices Jarvis in the Iron Man films too). Dennis Quaid is also in this movie as Bob Hanson. I recognize him from The Day After Tomorrow, but he's been in a lot of other films too. Adrianne Palicki plays the main character, Charlie. I know her from CW's Supernatural where she plays Jessica Moore, but you might know her as Lady Jaye from G.I. Joe: Retaliation. The movie also includes Kevin Durand, Tyrese Gibson, and Charles S. Dutton.

My favorite part: I loved the wings. Everything about them.
My least favorite part: All the unanswered questions.

Kassi's Kitties Rating: 4 out 10

Movie Evaluation. This is a play by play of the movie. Spoilers from here on.
So the movie opens with a nice scary biblical excerpt.

"Come, ye children, listen to me.
I will teach you
the fear of the lord."

-Psalms 34:11

Now to start out a horror/apocalyptic/action film that pretty much sets the mood for you. The quote fades out and a monologue starts playing. The main character (Charlie) is talking about what her mother used to tell her about God. She says that her mother used to speak about how God was "kind, merciful, and just" but that everything changed when her father left them. That God hated the world and soon a prophecy would come to pass and the world would be covered in darkness.
The title card plays.
So far so good.
Then Michael (yes, the archangel Michael) falls from heaven and cuts off his own wings. This, within two minutes of the film, already made me disappointed. I mean, I love the whole self-sacrificing hero thing. But angels? They're way too cool. And Michael would have been just fine if he had kept his wings and angelic powers. He later explains that "not having their burden is a dream". I just think that the directors didn't want to have to animate them throughout the whole movie.

The movie then shows us the remaining characters. The majority of the movie takes place at the Paradise Falls diner in the Mojave Desert. At the beginning of the film we have eight characters at the diner. After the eighth character (Kyle) arrives, Jeep tells his father, Bob, that he's been having bad dreams about Charlie. That he knows he has to be with her to help her. I suppose this is supposed to foreshadow the fact that Jeep is probably some prophet or something of the sort.

A car drives up to the diner. Cue the ominous music. An old lady enters the diner. We're given the creepy silhouette treatment as she enters. You know from the get go that something's up with her. She seems nice enough, introducing herself as Gladys Foster. She begins to make small talk with Charlie and some of the other costumers. She insults the wife of the couple in the diner and the husband approaches to yell at the woman. She attacks him, biting a nice pound of flesh from his neck. There's no way he's surviving that. 

Everyone freaks out and Gladys is struck in the face by a frying pan. Though the blow should have broken her neck, she bounces right up and crawls up the wall and around on the ceiling. This bit is extremely hokey to me. Although the innocent old lady looks absolutely terrifying covered in blood, the shark teeth are pretty lame looking. We find out later on that she's being possessed by an angel and I just don't think that that's what angels would be doing if they were trying to kill a baby. Gladys jumps down from the ceiling and is shot in the back three times by Kyle. She doesn't get back up.

Now the group (save for Bob, Jeep, and Charlie) jump in the car to get the injured man to a hospital. They make it five minutes before the car is enveloped in a swarm of flies (probably some vague reference to the plague of God). They return to the diner.

Michael then shows. He takes over and tells them to barricade the diner, more are coming.

Then proceeds the most terrifying scene in the movie. To me at least. It's a short scene, but it still creeps me out. Hold on to your hats for this one, kids. An ice cream truck - yeah that's right - pulls up. A seemingly harmless guy comes out. He stretches his limbs and does this freaky crawling thing. I had some nightmares about that later on. They shoot him down as well.

These are some of the things I don't understand. This is the only angel that does this. There was no purpose in stretching his limbs and there was no purpose for Gladys to crawl around on the ceiling. A lot of the hokiness of the movie could've been eliminated if they had stuck to more logical ideas to scare people.

A legion of possessed people (it makes sense now doesn't it?) find their way to the diner. Michael, Bob, Kyle, and the cook Percy shoot at them from the roof. One breaks through the window and grabs the dying husband that Gladys bit. Another grabs Charlie, but Michael shows up in time to save her. The husband, however, is taken. The angels fall back. To me, this is a huge plot fault because the angels could have just barged right in and won in about ten minutes flat and the movie would have been over. But they back off for the night. I suppose the directors needed some time to somewhat explain the plot.

Michael goes on to reveal what's really going on. God has sent down the angels to exterminate human kind. He has given up hope on humanity and plans to start over. Michael says that he is there to protect Charlie. Her baby is the only hope for the survival of human kind. "either your child lives or mankind dies". They must hold off the horde until the baby is born. Michael says that the last attack was a test of their strength and that the next will be a test of their weakness.

We're shown a bit of Michael's past after that. He tells another angel about how he doesn't believe the orders from God are right and that he wants to give his Father what he needs, not what he wants. The other angel tells Michael that if he fails, it will be the last time he angers God.

The attack on their weakness begins with the angels waking up the wife of the taken man. He is tied up outside. She runs outside, Percy on her heals. The man suddenly bursts open and acid flies everywhere covering Percy who shielded the wife. Percy and the other man both die. The wife survives, but she has been driven insane with loss.

A random family drives up to the diner to get gas. When the angels attack them and take the child Kyle jumps down from the roof to save him. Kyle saves the child and picks him up, but it turns out that the kid was possessed. He bites Kyle in the neck and kills him. This causes Audrey (the married couple's child) to jump down as well. She tries to kill the kid but runs out of bullets. She locks herself in the family's car. When Michael won't go out to save her, Charlie threatens to do it herself. Michael walks out and saves Audrey from the angels in a very extreme and badass action sequence.

The child manages to make his way into the diner and attacks Charlie. They kill the kid and Charlie's fine, but the attack has pushed her into early labor. Micheal and Audrey help her give birth and her son is born alive and healthy.

Trumpets blare while Charlie is giving birth. Michael announces that "he is coming". The angels begin to wail outside the diner. Michael says that the possessed cannot touch the child, but God has sent another that can. Someone like him. He says that Gabriel has been sent to do what he couldn't.

The insane wife randomly grabs the baby and plans to give it over to angels. Michael shoots her down. Another character dead. They just seem to drop like flies.

Enter Gabriel. The misunderstand little brother, trying to please daddy dearest. I must say he had one of the coolest entrances.

Bob Hanson shoots at Gabriel. Apparently wings are now solid shields, because they reflect bullets like metal. When Gabriel spins he catches Bob in the stomach and his wings slice into him, mortally wounding him. Michael tells Jeep to take the child and "find the prophets, learn to read them". Whatever the hell that means. Then follows the coolest scene in the movie, which is kind of disappointing because it's not that cool. Gabriel fights like a boss and uses his wings like another arm, which is something you never see in angel movies. That was something I did like about this movie. Gabriel obviously wins and Michael dies. His body disappears in a big glowy, sparkly light thing. When Michael dies, the tattoos start showing up along Jeep's body. Still don't know what that's about.

Gabriel attacks the car that Charlie and the others are in. It's a really poorly done scene considering the fact that there's an angel on the back of a squad car, climbing in the rear window to kill a baby. Audrey jumps on top of Gabriel to save Charlie. When Jeep slams on the brakes both Gabriel and Audrey fly out the front windshield. Audrey dies on impact. How the baby survives the following car crash I have no idea.

Jeep and Charlie manage to escape by climbing some random giant mountain. Gabriel appears again and attacks Jeep, who then tackles him off the edge of the cliff. Gabriel goes to kill Jeep when Michael suddenly appears to save the day! He has his wings back and looks better than ever.

Apparently, disobeying God is still cool. Gabriel gets pissed. As he should because he was just doing what God asked him to. The fight between them is very anticlimactic as Michael just slices his stomach with his sword and he goes down. Kevin Durand's performance as Gabriel makes the end of the movie somewhat depressing because you feel bad for Gabriel as he escapes back to heaven. Michael leaves and there's a beautiful sunset as Jeep, Charlie, and the baby look out over the cliff edge. Charlie repeats her monologue at the end and the movie ends there.

The end of the movie left a lot unexplained to me. For one thing, what the hell were all the tattoos about? I know Michael says that he's "the true protector", but what does that have to do with the markings and stuff? Why could Michael and Gabriel touch the baby, but none of the other angels could? Was it a ranking thing? And if God changed His mind about wanting the baby dead, why didn't He just order Gabriel off in the first place? Instead of sending Michael down there to kick his ass again. There were some good things about the movie, but there were more bad things about the movie.