Legion (Scott Stewart, 2010)

How often is angel depicted as villain in movie? I can recall an androgynous Archangel Gabriel (by Tilda Swinton) in Constantine (Lawrence, 2005). This biblical related movie has a intriguing but flawed concept: Doomsday is imminent, because God the Almighty has lost faith in humanity, so He execute the annihilation of all mankind, (His intention is to "reboot" civilization again?). He sends His huge army of angels to do the deed with a specific target: To kill Charlie the waitress because she is bearing the baby who is apparently the saviour of humanity. She is trapped in a remote diner with a group of people. This is where the battle between angels and humans takes place at.

Two of the four Archangel are the main features here, Michael (played by the über-cool Paul Bettany), the rebellious cum merciful one and Gabriel (Kevin Durand) the one who ever so loyal to God. Michael defied God's command by protecting the pregnant Charlie from the onslaught zombie-like humans which possessed by angels. Legion echoed The Mist (Darabont, 2008), Dawn of the Dead (both original and its remake) where a group of people defending their fortress from the enemy.

If you can lap up God's method of wiping out mankind using angels instead of mass flood, then I suppose you will shake off the laughable image of Archangels Michael and Gabriel holding the firearm trying to shoot each other. Without revealing the twisted ending, this movie seems unintentionally ridicules God the Almighty as God the Indecisive.


In between the juicy action sequences, the dialogues spoken by the human characters are banally awful to say the least. I understand the idea of those chats is meant to provide the characters' background but clearly it backfired. Legion is a campy B-movie who hardly fulfils my so called guilty pleasure. Highlights such as the creepy old lady and the ice cream man are clever setpieces. As much as I fond of Paul Bettany, not even him able to salvage this sluggish end of the world kind of tale.


1 star = Pathetic, SowYau feel ashamed of watching it
2 stars = Off the mark material, approach with caution
3 stars = Generally good, you should watch it if it's your favourite genre
4 stars = excellent, strongly recommended
5 stars = A classic status? only time will tell. But it is definitely in SowYau's Hall of Fame List