Film Review: Legion

Published on Thursday 4 March 2010 18:03

LEGION (15) * DIRECTED BY: SCOTT STEWART STARRING: PAUL BETTANY, LUCAS BLACK, ADRIANNE PALICKI, DENNIS QUAID

PUTTING a silly celestial spin on The Terminator, this latest apocalyptic fantasy casts Paul Bettany as an angel who has broken ranks with a vengeful God in order to descend from the heavens to protect a waitress pregnant with the future saviour of mankind from a tooled-up, metallic-winged Gabriel. The latter (Kevin Durand) is leading an army of angel zombies on an Almighty-sanctioned mission to wipe out our sinful existence. But the imminent birth of a new messiah – at Christmas no less – threatens to halt the effectiveness of God's wrath. That's the film's cost-cutting way of confining the action of this global slate-wiping to a dilapidated diner, workplace of Charlie (Adrianne Palicki), the reluctant mother-to-be. Under siege from a cheaply rendered plague of flies, some shuffling zombies and a foul-mouthed granny, and further isolated by a communications breakdown, a disparate cross-section of modern America – led by Dennis Quaid and Lucas Black – are forced to circle the wagons and protect Charlie. The need for faith seems to be the film's overriding message, but that seems more of a plea to indulge this incoherent mess than an attempt to explore a thematically resonant idea.