God is pissed at humanity. This time instead of sending a flood he decides to go even more extreme and just send a shit ton of angels to possess the weak willed people (?!?) to slaughter the mass of humanity and hunt down their future savior. A future savior whom still resides in a the womb of a loley waitress at a run down restaurant in the desert. Lucky for her and all of her co-workers and friends caught in the possession onslaught, an angel disobeys God and makes himself a human to protect the savior and his mother. Can Michael the fallen angel protect the savior of mankind or shall God's wrath swallow them all?
Despite its fairly badass concept and theatrical release, "Legion" comes off more like a straight to DVD that plays itself far too safe for what it could have been. In fact, that's basically why "Legion" hardly ever works besides on a visual side. The story loves to touch on all of these great concepts and ideas but it never actually does anything with them nor does it actually bring up anything nice and controversial for itself. When I see a religious Horror/Action film I expect a little more controversy than a half assed attempt at a moral lesson at the end and a few moments of 'why would God do this?' That's all you got for me? A few snazzy visuals and half assed attempts at giving the film depth? Sorry. "End Of Days" felt more heartfelt than this.
Perhaps the reason for "Legion"'s failures at this is the fact that its story is just too epic for an hour and forty minutes. This would have been much more badass as say a miniseries in the form of like "Storm Of The Century" or "The Stand". It just needed more time with the many characters as it had to get us invested and we definitely needed much more time with the resident fallen angel Michael. We get surface value details of everyone and even the story, but the film just fails to have time to actually delve into these things.
"Legion" is action packed and has some good moments that support this. The angel battle between Michael and Gabriel is pretty solid and occasional gun battle works nicely (like when the car comes into get gas for example) but even some of those seem a little off the wall. The trap with the man filled with acid was cool looking but failed seriously in the logic department. Cool visuals and some solid action just can't save it though.
Although it does have some great concepts, "Legion" just comes off too half assed to really get done what it could have. Some nice visuals and some nice action are the highlights of the film, but don't think too hard about the story. It never really wants you to.
BONUS RANT: Did anyone else think that "Legion" ripped off "The Terminator" series a bit too much? The idea of killing a mother to kill the child, the opening sequence where Michael comes to Earth, the ending where they drive off into the desert (mother wearing a bandanna and all)? At times it made me wonder a bit. Maybe I'm just being a little too picky.
Written By Matt Reifschneider
No comments:
Post a Comment