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Legion (2010)

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Blu-ray Disc Released: 5/11/2010

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Review by Mike Long, Posted on 5/17/2010

I don't like to label things, but it would be fair to say that I'm a horror movie fan, but I don't know if I'm a horror fanatic. There is a group out there who will defend anything related to horror, no better how bad it is. I don't fall into that category. Still, I champion the genre and whenever a horror movie gets blasted by critics, I always take this with a grain of salt. Critics never seem to get horror films and plenty of classics have been ripped apart by them. So, when I sat down to watch Legion, it was an open mind. Now I know, the critics were right.

Legion opens with Michael (Paul Bettany) falling to Earth. He reveals his angel wings, and then promptly cuts them off. He finds a cache of machine guns, loads them in a stolen police car and drives away. The scene then shifts to a diner in the desert. There, we meet the diner's owner, Bob (Dennis Quaid), his son, Jeep (Lucas Black), a pregnant waitress, Charlie (Adrianne Palicki), the cook, Percy (Charles S. Dutton), a lost traveler, Kyle (Tyrese Gibson) and a stranded family, Howard (Jon Tenney), Sandra (Kate Walsh), and Audrey (Willa Holland). This seems like any normal day in this wasteland, until they lose TV and radio reception, and a very bizarre incident with an old lady occurs. Michael arrives and informs everyone that Armageddon has begun and that he is there to protect Charlie's baby. Soon, the diner is besieged by hundreds of people who are possessed...but by what? Michael hands out the guns and helps the confused humans to try and hold the masses at bay.

Legion comes to us from Director/Co-writer Scott Stewart and Co-Writer Peter Schink, who had previously done special effects work and editing, respectively. So, this was their first time being at the helm of a feature film, but both have worked in the industry for several years. So, we can't blame the fact that Legion is a terrible movie on their inexperience.

So often, I feel that the screenwriter doesn't receive enough credit, but conversely, sometimes they don't get enough blame. Legion is that kind of film. Stewart and Schink have come up with a lot of ideas, but there is absolutely nothing to back them up. It's been a long time since I've seen a movie with this many plotholes and question marks. Michael comes to Earth and finds a cache of weapons in a toy factory. I guess that he knew that they were there because he's an angel, but still it's weird. There's often a question with movies like this about whether or not they are sacrilegious. However, Legion simply isn’t religious enough. When asked to explain what is happening, Michael essentially explains that this is like the flood which God sent to wipe the Earth clean, but different. Michael is also really vague when it comes to explaining why he must protect Charlie’s baby. And as for the people attacking the diner, this is sort of explained, but not very well.

I’ve seen and enjoyed plenty of films which were style over substance, but Legion’s substance was apparently stuck in traffic. Again, this is a film which is all ideas and no thought. I’m sure that the notion of an angel fighting off baddies with a machine gun (and a bazooka!) sounded like a great idea, as did the idea of two angels fighting, but in reality, none of it works. Any momentum mustered in the movie’s first act is quickly squandered, as Legion becomes a siege film. This is the kind of movie where characters sit in a building, hiding from some external threat. As they sit and wait, they have heavy conversations about life. The intermittent action scenes don’t work and the movie’s attempts at actually being scary in the second half fall flat. (Let me put all of this in a different way: All of the good stuff is in the trailer and comes from the first 30 minutes of the movie.)

The latest season of Supernatural (which I should be reviewing in a few months) has been all about angels, and they’ve presented some interesting ideas about Heaven’s army. The difference between that show and Legion is that Supernatural is interested in telling a story and involving interesting characters. Legion has decided that it wants to be a quasi-horror action flick which is about religion, but shies away from any true religious conversation. The notion of bad-ass angels is a good one and could have made a great film. Legion squanders this idea and due to the lack of excitement, the only praying that the viewer will be doing will start with “Now I lay me down to sleep...”

Legion introduces Lucas Black’s character, only to have him disappear for minutes on end, on Blu-ray Disc courtesy of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. The film has been letterboxed at 2.35:1 and the Disc features a 1080p HD transfer which runs at an average of 27 Mbps. The image is very sharp and clear, showing no overt grain and no defects from the source material. The image is a tad dark in some scenes, but not so much that the action isn’t visible. The colors look good and are realistic. The image shows a nice amount of detail and we can make out the textures of fabrics. The depth is impressive as well. The Disc carries a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track which runs at 48 kHz and an average of 3.8 Mbps. The track provides clear dialogue and sound effects. The stereo effects are nicely done, most notably when sounds come from off-screen. The surround sound effects are nearly constant, and show good separation. The subwoofer effects are of the wall-shaking variety and really add to the experience.

The Legion Blu-ray Disc sports a few extras. "Bringing Angels to Earth: Picture-in-Picture" is a viewing option in which interviews and behind-the-scenes footage are offered in a PIP format. Writer/Director Scott Stewart leads this backstage view, and he is accompanied by storyboards, on-set footage, and comments from many involved in the film. "Creating the Apocalypse" (24 minutes) is a making-of featurette which examines the visual effects and the makeup effects of key scenes, giving us an in-depth look at how the various elements of these scenes were done. "Humanity's Last Line of Defense" (12 minutes) takes a look at the cast and characters, examining each in turn. "From Pixels to Picture" (11 minutes) offers interviews with the visual effects team, who describe how some of the effects were done.

Review by Mike Long.  Copyright 2010.