If there is a trope of this century’s horror movies which can die first, it is CGI things walking up walls and all over ceilings. That has never been scary, and never will be.
In 2010’s Legion, we have two different possessed people who do this: one is an old woman and the other is a young boy. This follows an unspoken movie rule—the more ironic the person it would be for a person to start spewing profanity and/or pea soup, the more likely they are to become possessed.
This is the kind of movie which opens with a bible verse, followed by a guy (Paul Bettany) in a dark, rainy alley falling to his knees. An overhead crane shot pulls out slowly as he bellows to the heavens, “NOOOOO!!!”. Then we get some narration about a time of darkness, when all the fate of mankind would be determined, blah blah blah.
Next we follow He Who Yells In Alleys to a closed business named Happy Toy Co and Imports. He breaks in and we discover this place has far more large guns than one would normally expect from an enterprise with such a name. Obviously trying to keep a low profile, our hero sets off an explosive in order to the exit the building. This explosion leaves a hole the shape of a flaming cross in the wall. Ooh…symbolism.
Turns out our hero (I think) is a fallen angel (possibly) who is defying God (presumably) to ensure the birth of, and provide protection for, a child who will be the anti-Christ (???—I never did figure this one out). So, according to my likely incorrect understanding of the plot, God wants to stop the birth of the anti-Christ (?), so he sends his angels to slaughter and/or possess people who get in their way.
Among the most confusing elements of this affair is the idea of people getting possessed by angels. These victims have their eyes turn solidly black and their teeth become tiny, sharp points. Even in the world of the movie, I can accept what happens to their eyes, but by what kind of physics does their teeth entirely change shape? For that matter, why would there be any physical changes?
And these are angels?! I mean, when you see an elder woman’s eyes suddenly go black, her teeth become little pointy things, hear her order a raw steak (that is soon crawling with flies), call a woman a “cunt”, tear a guys throat out with those newfangled teeth and spiderwalk up the walls and ceiling, you automatically think, “possessed by an angel, right?” What theology major wrote this script?
That takes place at a diner in the desert because, of course. There’s a bickering middle-aged couple and their underdressed goth-lite daughter, the dusty and grizzled diner owner (Dennis Quaid) and his mechanic son (too lazy to look him up), the cook (Charles S. Dutton) and Black guy from the streets who is not the kind of guy white people such as the middle-aged couple assume he would be (Tyrese Gibson). Oh, I almost forgot: pregnant woman who appears to be in her fifth trimester but who stomps around as if her condition impacts her mobility in no way whatsoever.
So, now that we’re caught up: somebody pumps a small militia’s worth of ammo into demon…I mean angel granny. Trying to staunch the blood, it looks like some of the patrons try to put a tourniquet on loud-mouth middle-aged guy’s neck, which I was good with. The TV starts showing the Emergency Broadcast System card but with the text “THIS IS NOT A TEST” for the first time ever. And yet, there is no additional information. I would think that, if they could bother putting up that notification, but they could provide more info than that.
Soon, somebody in a stereotypical hick accent says, “Ma! Lookee here, looks like a CGI sandstorm a-rollin in!” Well, in retrospect, it seems unlikely anybody actually said that, but they might as well have. A couple of people try to drive a hemorrhaging guy to the nearest hospital, but they have to return to the diner when it turns out the sandstorm is actually tons of flies. Insects start coming in through the dashboard vents, which is why I always use the recirculating air when I drive.
Bettany then arrives, only to be held at gunpoint by Quaid. “Is this how you greet all your customers?” he asks. Hey, buddy, does this look like a Denny’s?
Bettany tells them to fortify the diner and they help him unload all his guns and set-up a bunch of them on the roof. From this vantage point, they have a pretty good view of the carnage in the next couple of scenes, which are the best in the movie.
First, the ice cream truck of the apocalypse arrives because, of course. This is what happens when Mr. Softee gets pushed too far and decides to play hard. The possessed driver’s mouth and limbs become impossibly distended because angel physics, or something like that. And, once again, angels?
The next scene is even better, as a convoy of vehicles descend on the diner, occupying both sides of the road. There’s a lot of gun fire, and some extra crispy explosions where angel-possessed people die all spicy like.
Bettany explains all of this is part of the mass extermination of humanity God has ordered his minions to carry out. I don’t know, it looks like God has gotten lazy and inefficient since his Old Testament days.
Except for a couple of scenes, this is where the picture starts to get into a rut it never pulls out of. It couldn’t even be saved by a scene where middle-aged guy is crucified upside-down in the yard behind the diner. I thought it was funny he is tied to the cross, when everything we have been shown so far indicates the enemy would have no problem driving nails through every inch of his body.
Said body, by the way, is covered with pulsing boils, which the wife doesn’t seem to think is unusual when she runs out to rescue him. Maybe that was a condition he always had. Anywho, Dunning runs out to stop her and ends up taking the brunt of acid which explodes out from the crucified man’s boils.
Dunning dies, of course, because this movie requires the only Black people to sacrifice their lives in the course of rescuing white people. In this case, the only two Black men here both die while saving white women who pointlessly put themselves in danger at the time.
There’s not much more I feel I can say about this picture. It pretty much unfolds the way I would expect it to. The movie is pretty good for roughly the first third, if you’re looking for dumb fun. Unfortunately, it gets mired in dull conversations between characters we couldn’t care less about. It’s almost like it forgot it is yet another garbage movie from Screen Gems, who would pair Bettany and director Scott Stewart together again in Priest.
Even a climatic battle between Bettany and the angel Gabriel (Kevin Durand) is boring. But it did have me wondering about yet another aspect of the bizarro world this takes place in: why would angels have blood and guts? For that matter, why/how is it they can be wounded, let alone die?
Legion is garbage but the big sin it commits is when it stops being enjoyable garbage. My biggest takeaway is it unintentionally puts a whole new spin on the cliché of calling children “little angels”. I always found most children to be little monsters, so it turns out that, whichever way you look at it, I was right all along.
Dir: Scott Stewart
Starring Paul Bettany, Dennis Quaid, Charles S. Dutton
Watched on blu-ray (the hilariously named “Double Salvation” pack, where it is paired with Priest)