It’s been suggested by critics that the hugely successful vampire cycle of films (epitomised in its shallowest form by the massively popular Twilight franchise, and perhaps at its most sophisticated by 2008’s Let the Right One In) is now being usurped by a new Hollywood fixation on the spiritual/supernatural/apocalyptic genre. If such is the case, Scott Stewart’s Legion certainly doesn’t bode well for the viewer hoping to get even a modicum of superficial fun out of this up and coming cycle. Paul Bettany plays the Arch-Angel Michael, sent to Earth to Terminator style on a mission from God which will determine the fate of the human race. The absurd film takes place largely in a remote diner, whose inhabitants and patrons (including Dennis Quaid, the diner’s proprietor) become cut off from the outside world, and must fight off hordes of violent angels sent to destroy humanity. One of the diner’s occupants is pregnant, and the baby is predictably revealed to be mankind’s last chance at salvation. Cue an obnoxious and pretentious struggle for the baby’s welfare or destruction. For some reason, there’s a certain type of third rate horror film marked by the fact that it strands its characters in a diner, or bar, in the middle of the New Mexican wilderness. I’m wondering whether these films all take their cue from some original, worthwhile film, however I’m at a loss to suggest what that film might be (perhaps it’s From Dusk till Dawn, though can’t really fathom why it would be so influential).
Stewart populates his film with nasty depictions of crucifixions, boils and sores, acid bursting from various containers, and other biblical inflected unpleasantness. The special effects are redolent of last year’s body-horror films; jaded depictions of out-of-kilter joints, elongated limbs, and old women scuttling around the walls of the diner which only underscore the vacuity of the broader horror we’re supposed to enjoy. Despite reasonable computer graphics, nothing here is shocking or frightening or even interesting, in conception or execution. Films like this really illustrate a kind of ‘all or nothing’ quality of cinematic spectacle; when it doesn’t work, there’s so little to think about or feel about the unfolding scenes. The acting is terrible, it unfortunately goes without saying.
The central concept of an agent of a higher power sent to destroy wayward humanity who then changes his mind through some trite display of human goodness (in this case a baby) shares much in common with the recent remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still. And while it’s probable that the latter film has pretty clear biblical overtones, Legion’s use of Christian iconography (rather than science fiction iconography) is far less enjoyable, and needs to be handled with far greater care than Stewart is willing to provide. And there’s little of the crass but infectious abandon of other films that dramatise god and the devil and angels etc. at war with humans, like 1999’s End of Days. In that film, the mixing of the action genre with Christian iconography seemed gleeful, frivolous and fun, however here, with all the fun vacuumed out, gun-wielding angles are just incomprehensible.
I really doubt that this cycle of films could approach the popularity of the vampire genre. The most deft use of religious imagery can seem laboured and laborious and just ‘too much’ (not to suggest that recent vampire wmovies are all paragons of subtlety), and there’s nothing youthful and certainly nothing sexy about saviour babies and militant angles.
The film is really no significant departure from the equally unsuccessful The Reaping from 2007; Legion’s producers obviously didn’t pay heed to that film’s prophecy of total narrative failure.
