Movie Review: Legion (2010)

I'm always fascinated by movies that tackle the end of the world or religious characters, and when I see the two combined, I'm a happy kid. The initial trailers for Legion made it look a little cheesy, so I was okay with waiting until it streamed on Netflix. The biggest draw for me was Paul Bettany. He definitely adds to anything he's in, even the horrible Da Vinci Code. He could fart into a coffee can while yodeling Lady GaGa tunes and be compelling. Here he plays a dissenting angel, Michael, who wants to save humanity from God's wrath. He decides that machine guns are the best way to do this.

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Michael sets up base at a diner in the middle of nowhere where a pregnant waitress happens to be carrying the next Messiah. He is joined by the diner owner, his son, a dad on his way to family court in Los Angeles, a snobby family of three and our waitress. He explains that God has given up on us and basically wants to start fresh a la the Noah era. Michael was assigned the new child's murder and decided against it, leaving Gabriel in charge of the task. Weak humans are posessed in a zombie-like fashion and set to kill.

The story is what you'd expect. Zombies are shot up with machine guns, our crew gets whittled down little by little, and yes, the black guy gets killed. The ending is also no real surprise, but that's perfectly fine. When you go into something like this, a surprise twist ending is nice, but not necessary. The point is to watch some cool effects and have some fun. That was pretty much how it was for me. I dug it. I wouldn't watch it again, but I dug it. That's all that mattered. If you're bored on a Sunday afternoon, flip on your Netflix and give it a whirl.