Legion
Director: Scott Stewart
Stars: Paul Bettany, Dennis Quaid
Classification: STC
Rating: *
Somebody up there has a sense of humour: how else to explain Paul Bettany starring in duelling new releases as both Charles Darwin and a badass angel bent on keeping God from destroying humanity?
Descending from the heavens into the L.A. night like Kyle Reese, Bettany’s Michael is bent on making it out to the desert, to a truck stop housing a twangy Sarah Connor manque (Adrianne Palicki). Precisely why this dust-bunny’s unborn child holds the key to humanity’s salvation in the face of extermination is a question never addressed in Peter Schink and director Scott Stewart’s screenplay.
A few others: Why does God’s plan to eradicate his most beloved creations include so much stalling? (The first act plays like Dawn of the Dead, with possessed citizens assaulting the compound and getting shot up by Bettany and his motley crew of human pals, including Tyrese Gibson and a hook-handed Charles S. Dutton.)
Why does Michael’s winged nemesis Gabriel (Kevin Durand) stop in the middle of his Divine errand to have a fistfight? When did Dennis Quaid go from the poor man’s Harrison Ford to an ornery supporting role in mid-January studio dreck?
Legion is atrociously made, but what really rankles are its thinly veiled reactionary politics (in short: armed militias=good; abortions=not so much).
