Legion

Scott Stewart’s Legion can be summed up in one hyphenated word: God-awful.

In the vague near future, God has become angry with his creations (again). Instead of a world-ending flood, though, he decides to unleash his army of angels to destroy mankind. The archangel Michael (Paul Bettany) disagrees with the Almighty, and sets off to save a pregnant waitress (Adrianne Palicki) whose child, for a reason the film never bothers to explain, is mankind’s only hope.

Along for the ride are a ragtag group of stereotypes. There is the no-nonsense owner of the diner (Dennis Quaid), the rich couple (Kate Walsh and Jon Tenney) with the rebellious teenage daughter (Willa Holland), the tough black man with the heart of gold (Tyrese Gibson) and the redneck mechanic (Lucas Black). Predictably, they die off one by one as the film builds to the inevitable climactic showdown between Michael and the “evil” archangel Gabriel (Kevin Durand).

The film embarrassingly goes through the motions. Each character is given a token backstory and unexplored motivations, while the plot is nothing more than an excuse to go from one cherubic gunfight to the next. Even though it’s a “worldwide apocalypse,” there is no mention of what’s happening elsewhere. For all we know, this wannabe Waffle House in New Mexico is the sole target of Our Heavenly Father’s wrath.

To further damage the film’s credibility, other than Michael and Gabriel, the movie has no angels at all. Instead, it opts for the strange love children of zombies and Exorcist rejects. The writers could have just as easily done away with the entire apocalypse motif and ended up with a decent, if shallow, Dawn of the Dead knockoff.

One can only hope that if the apocalypse does come, any traces of this movie will be the first thing to go.