Legion

Action movies aren't supposed to be boring. They can be a lot of things: funny, complex, cheesy, cringe-worthy, ridiculous, loud, unbelievable, awe-inspiring... any of those things or a whole list of adjectives more. But boring? That's an action movie's one cardinal sin. If it's going to be awful, fine. Be awful. But don't be boring about it.



Perhaps that's what makes Legion such a foul wreck of a movie. It isn't particularly well acted. The story is muddled at best, and it asks you to accept things as fact that it doesn't bother explaining to you. The characters are one-dimensional cliches. But above all? Legion is an action movie that doesn't move. It's a thriller that spends 30-40 minute blocks of time having those cliched characters sitting around a diner, describing the same back stories you've heard in any stock action movie.

Legion opens in a way that will immediately remind people of Terminator. Michael (Paul Bettany), a self-described general in God's army, has come to earth to help stave off an extermination of mankind. Why, do you ask, has God decided to exterminate mankind? As Charlie (Adrianne Palicki) explains during a monologue (of which there are many), her mother told her that God used to be loving but "got tired of all the bullshit." Yes. That's really all the explanation that the movie gives for humanity's demise. Instead of sending a flood this time, God has decided to send angels to wipe out man. Angels who apparently have the same "take over a person's body" power that you might remember the agents having from The Matrix. But rather than completely annihilate mankind, the entire force of heaven seems to be preoccupied in killing Charlie's unborn child, forcing Charlie to hole up at a Mojave desert diner where she waitresses. And serving as her protectors are every action movie cliche you could possibly dream up. There's the middle/upper class white family with issues (John Tenney, Kate Walsh, and Willa Holland), the African American guy with a checkered past (Tyrese Gibson), the older and sagely African American guy that keeps his faith (Charles S. Dutton), the older white guy who has lost his faith and is usually divorced (Dennis Quaid), and his son who ends up becoming the unlikely hero (Lucas Black). None of them were memorable enough for me to remember their names with the exception of the unlikely hero that was unfortunate enough to be named "Jeep." Charlie is told that her unborn baby is humanity's last hope. Why her baby is so important is something that we're never told.

And none of that would even be a completely ridiculous premise, were it not for the fact that, and I can't stress this enough, nothing happens. You get about 5 minutes of action surrounded by 30 minutes of sitting around in the diner going into back story, before getting another 5 minutes of action. I can handle people being trapped inside somewhere and having most of the movie consist of dialogue. The Mist pulled this off extremely well just a couple of years ago. The dialogue is trite here. The characters are hollow. And the acting, with the exception of Bettany and Palicki, is wooden and stiff. And using the word "action" to describe the short bursts of non-conversation is probably being generous. Most of the time, the "action" consists of people sitting on the roof picking off the angel-possessed people that seem to go down easier than any movie zombie you've ever seen.

By the time the movie builds to a conclusion that is by no means surprising, Legion has more than worn out its welcome.