Some movies look great on paper but are either let down by the transition to the big screen. Let me sow that seed of information as you read on.
Legion is the new action thriller from Sony Pictures. It stars Paul Bettany, Dennis Quaid, Lucas Black, Adrianne Palicki, Charles S. Dutton, Tyrese Gibson, Kevin Durand, Jon Tenney, Willa Holland, Kate Walsh and is directed by Scott Stewart.
The basic premise of the movie is that God (although never mentioned by name) isn’t happy with his people and decides to start all over again, much like the Bible story, Noah and the Ark. The difference here is that rather than sending a giant flood to wipe out the earth, God uses….. Us! Sound a bit odd. Well, it sort of is!
While God prepares his army of angels to come and possess us all, one angel, Michael (Bettany) stands up against the Lord and Creator. Michael is on a mission to save a baby which is currently in the womb of Charlie played by Adrianne Palicki. If the baby lives, humanity has a chance, if he/she doesn’t, it’s the end of the world as we know it. Along with Bettany, it’s down to a human with the stupidest name of all time, Jeep Hanson (Lucas Black) to try to defend the love of his life who couldn’t care less if he was attracted to her or not.
Legion is a very confused movie with a rather large cast and no real idea of where it’s going. The fact that a rogue angel stands up to God to defy his will is crazy and goes against everything The Bible has taught Christians since it was written. Some of the dialogue between characters us just laughable and in fact, if you had a camera on the lady sitting next to me, you’d think Legion was indeed full of laugh out loud jokes. She really was in hysterics at how terrible this film was. She was not alone with groans, yawns and people leaving the screening well before it finished as they couldn’t take anymore! I held strong to the end for you the HeyUGuys readers!
Some redeeming qualities include the sound design which was just fantastic and the special effects but I’m afraid neither save this movie from the tripe that it turned out to be. I’m rather sad it was so bad because from the trailers, it has potential to be something great and I think if the screenplay had been better, we’d have seen a great movie. However it was full of so many absurdities and cliched lines that it was destined to go to the bottom of the bargain bin at your local service/gas station.
If Terminator was merged with Dawn of the Dead with a splash of Childsplay and Men in Black thrown in for good measure, you’d get some way to explaining Legion’s storyline. It’s redeeming feature is that it only cost an estimated $26m to make an according to wikipedia, has already made double that in takings in the US so I guess it’s not to be sniffed at. The effects and cast that was used in the movie was actually quite respectable with a budget so low (and yes, i know $26m is still an awful lot of money).
Legion is released in cinemas this Friday. I really look forward to some of you seeing it so you can tell me if I’m wrong but please make sure you go on Orange Wednesday so you’re not paying full price to watch it!
