Blu-Ray Review: Awful ‘Legion’ With Paul Bettany, Dennis Quaid

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CHICAGO – It’s hard to say what about “Legion” is the film’s worst offense: some of the most laughable dialogue of the year, mediocre special effects, uninteresting characters, or truly bad performances. Yes, “Legion” is a head-scratchingly horrible movie. Take your pick. It’s all wrong.

Blu-Ray Rating: 1.0/5.0

Blending fantasy/action with a heavy religious angle, “Legion” is essentially about the end of the world. Most of the film takes place at a secluded gas station as a group of people face the coming apocalypse with cheesy B-movie dialogue, revelations about their secretive pasts, and, of course, grisly death. Part horror movie, part John Carpenter-esque thriller, and part character drama, “Legion” never once finds a rhythm, swinging wildly in tone and pace until a bloated finale should leave most viewers hoping for some supreme being to wipe out some of the people responsible for this junk.

The only redeeming quality of “Legion” is in the lead performance of Paul Bettany as Michael, an Archangel who has fallen to Earth after refusing to obey God’s orders to destroy the human race. Michael believes man deserves one more shot at redemption and it turns out that the key to the survival of humanity lies in the womb of a pregnant waitress (Adrianne Palicki) at a middle-of-nowhere truck stop.

Legion was released on Blu-Ray and DVD on May 11th, 2010.
Photo credit: Sony

Michael’s role is merely to protect the unborn child until she gives birth. Protect against what? Basically, zombies. The great Doug Jones pops up in the only memorable enemy role as a creepy Ice Cream Man until Kevin Durand (“Lost,” “Robin Hood”) gets to chew some scenery as the angel Gabriel, the former ally of Michael who is now foe. Actors stuck in the fight of the species include Dennis Quaid, Lucas Black, Tyrese Gibson, Kate Walsh, Jon Tenney, and Charles S. Dutton.

With that cast and concept, “Legion” had potential, but it feels like the script by Peter Schink and Scott Stewart never settled on a tone. “Legion” could have easily felt like prime era John Carpenter in the way that it features a group of survivors in one location fighting against the nightmare outside, but the one thing that director Stewart never develops is what Carpenter was the master of — tension. “Legion” is boring, a blend of horrible exchanges between characters that are impossible to care about and poorly designed CGI action scenes. Who knew the end of the world would be so damn dull?

The Blu-ray release of “Legion” is presented in 1080p High Definition with a 2.40:1 aspect ratio and is accompanied by an English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio track and includes the following special features:

o “Creating the Apocalypse”
o “Humanity’s Last Line of Defense”
o “From Pixels to Picture”
o “Bringing Angels to Earth” Picture-In-Picture
o MovieIQ and BD-Live
o A Digital Copy of the Film

By BRIAN TALLERICO Content Director HollywoodChicago.com brian@hollywoodchicago.com