Movie Preview: Legion

Looking forward to 2010 another disaster awaits mankind. I don't mean the Mayans, Health Care Reform, Cap & Trade, or the mid-term elections. No this will be far worse. This will be an act on high.

At least that is the premise of Legion. It is another in a long line of films that pose the question, what if religious deities (or their minions) decided that mankind had to go. This was probably best done in the low-budget but fan favorite The Prophecy with Christopher Walken.

Legion takes much from that film, using angels as the means as the end of mankind. But this time man has an ally. The Archangel Michael. And there is a secret weapon in the form of a baby that can save us all. That part comes from Dogma I think. Or maybe Terminator, your choice.

In terms of the looks, it's a better than average film. There are lots of CGI effects that work. The tone matches the dark skies and lighting. The desolate feel of a desert standoff matches the sense of desperation the characters are dealing with.

Here is the video so you see what I mean.



The thing that stands out immediately to me is the number of quality actors and the time the film will be released. The film has veterans like Charles Dutton and Dennis Quaid. Both are excellent actors and can being a lot of credibility to the film. Then again the film also has Tyrese Gibson. We can hope he dies early in the film.

Paul Bettany as Michael looks like a good choice too. He has a good feel from what we can get from the movie trailer. You may recall Bettany best for his role in the DaVinci Code, but he has also been in A Beautiful Mind, Knight's Tale, and will be in Iron Man 2 (as the voice of Jarvis as in Iron Man).

Really the big question is the plot. Does it make sense. Can these mere mortals and 1 angel (given that he is 1 of the 3 Archangels [religious scholars may know of more of them]) hold out against a horde of other lesser angels (and another Archangel, Gabriel)? Would God really kill off humanity? What about the last Archangel, Lucifer. Surely in such a battle, with the stakes being so high and for a commodity that has a value to Lucifer, that fallen angel would not just sit it out.

I think the entire film is about faith. A test of faith for mankind and the angels - actually the Archangels. It's a question of how far would you go to save/help someone you don't know because you believe it will result in some good, but you have no facts or even clues that you are right.

This film will either work or fail because of the writing. The Prophecy was low budget, with only Walken being the big prize. But the writing made the story work, and fans stuck with it so much that 3 more sequels were made. This is the bigger budget cousin of that idea. And without a good script all the names are just a write-off on a bad marketing gimmick.

Of course the fact I review films constantly gives me a somewhat jaded view. The reason I have doubts about the film really comes from 2 things. The first is that the 3rd Archangel seems to be missing from the film. That means the writers weren't smart enough to include him. Which means there are going to be big gaps in logic. Not a good sign.

The other is what I alluded to earlier. This film will be out January 22, 2010. That's almost the start of the film year. It is almost always a time when the very worst ideas that have been sitting on shelves are thrown out and forgotten about. There has been almost no movie of worth that has come out that early in a year. This could be a sleeper hit, but I don't think that was the intention on this. It has too much money behind it.

No, for all their faults a bunch of Hollywood execs saw the final product and had a problem with the film. They could be wrong, and I would like that as both Bettany and Dutton could use a boost, but I doubt that.

Still I probably will go see this just because I like Bettany and Dutton. So now you know.