Title: Legion
Studio: Sony Pictures
Director: Scott Stewart
Actors: Paul Bettany, Lucas Black, Tyrese Gibson, Dennis Quaid, Adrianne Palicki, Willa Holland
Every once in a while, an opportunity of such great potential comes along that it stops you in your tracks and rattles you to the core. When such a moment occurs, you have no choice but to drop to your knees and stare dumbfounded, perplexed by your good fortune. For a website named “ThatMovieSucked.com”, such a moment has arrived: Legion has come to DVD.
What is Legion? Well, for this site, it’s pure oxygen to keep the hate-fires alive. For everyone else, it may be one of the worst studio movies you’ve ever seen.
The debut embarrassment film from rookie director Scott Stewart, Legion is a simple movie about God getting “fed up with all of mankind’s bullshit” and the resulting apocalypse. The big guy in the clouds sends an army of angels down to possess humans (for some reason) and kill off other humans. Specifically, they’re after a small group of people hiding out in a diner in the middle of nowhere, due to one of the women being pregnant with a child God doesn’t want to be born (for some reason). Archangel Michael, however, thinks God’s plan is bullshit, and plans on protecting the group of stereotypes from danger until the baby is born. Equipped with a cache of massive guns that no amateur could possibly operate, the unlikely militia must hold out as wave after wave of angels beat down their doors.
Now, let’s just assume for a moment that it’s actually possible to excuse the horrible writing and acting, the fact that nothing is explained and no reasons are offered for anything, that one of the lead guys is named ‘Jeep’, that Dennis Quaid should know better than to be in this, that the film blatantly rips off the Terminator saga, that angels should just retain their immortal, kick-ass form to easily kill a bunch of fragile humans, and many, many other problems that anyone should be able to easily see through. Let’s excuse all of that. But how do you excuse a former visual effects artist-turned director making a movie with effects like these?
Ridiculous CGI stretch-mouth and itty, bitty shark teeth? Really?
What particularly makes this whole aspect funny is an interview with Stevens which touches on the topics of Legion’s special effects and writing.
“Coming from a special effects background, how do you make that leap into directing?”
“Well actually I have kind of an unusual background in a sense. I was a writer before I became a visual effects artist…you know the visual effects helped, obviously, because people knew that I could handle things visually, but it starts with story, and I had written the script and so it kind of started with that.”
Yeah, that’s right, Scott – you sure “handled things visually” all right. Top notch work on the writing too.
At first, I thought this movie was intending to be bad in sort of a campy way – a B-movie. However, there’s nothing campy or fun about this shit storm. Legion’s writing and acting are terrible, but in a way that suggests that it’s due to ineptitude, not cleverness. Coupled with the fact that this is Stevens’ first feature-length film, it seems much more likely that the guy just made one colossal waste of time, not a bigger-budget B-movie.
Legion is an awful, awful movie, and for those of you keeping track on your official ThatMovieSucked.com Ratings Scorecard* it’s received the lowest score yet, tied only with The Box. And, unlike The Box, this is one that’s even hard to recommend for a good laugh.
*Figment of my imagination. Doesn’t actually exist.
“Coming from a special effects background, how do you make that leap into directing?”
“Well actually I have kind of an unusual background in a sense. I was a writer before I became a visual effects artist…you know the visual effects helped obviously because people knew that I could handle things visually, but it starts with story, and I had written the script and so it kind of started with that.”
