The Extermination Of Mankind: Legion

LEGION (Bu-ray)
Sony Pictures Home Ent.

Release Date: August 9th, 2010
Certificate (UK): 15
Running time: 100 minutes

Director: Scott Stewart
Writers: Peter Schink, Scott Stewart

Cast: Paul Bettany, Lucas Black, Tyrese Gibson, Adrianne Palick, Charles S. Dutton, Kate Walsh, Dennis Quaid

The battle between good and evil has been raging for quite some time now. Probably since the moment mankind took its first steps.

With everything in the universe working in perfect balance with what can only be described as its perfect opposite, mankind seems be caught in an eternal struggle to free its good self from its evil counterpart, but maybe one cannot exist without the other. We cannot be wholly good, just as I’d like to think no one can be wholly evil.

Legion is not an incredibly impressive film. In fact, there’s a lot about it that troubles me, but watching it again recently it made me think about questions I used to have during Bible class when I was a small boy.

The film begins with Archangel Michael (Paul Bettany) falling to Earth on a rainy night in Los Angeles. After proceeding to cut off his wings he sets out to arm himself with an arsenal of weapons before making his way across the desert to a small diner called Paradise Falls; the unlikeliest place on Earth where the fight for mankind will take place.

Bob Hanson (Dennis Quaid) is the diner’s owner; worn out and fed up, he tries to keep his place going with his son Jeep (Lucas Black), their cook Percy (Charles S. Dutton) and a heavily pregnant waitress, Charlie (Adrianne Palicki). Married couple Howard and Sandra Anderson (Jon Tenney and Kate Walsh) are waiting for Jeep to finishing fixing their car so they can be on their way with their wayward teenager Audrey (Willa Holland). Another out-of-towner, Kyle (Tyrese Gibson), drops by on his way to L.A. to use the diner’s pay phone.

So far it hasn’t been a particularly bad day but all of that soon changes when an elderly woman walks in and orders a steak. As possessed locals descend upon Paradise Falls, it’s up to Michael and those in the diner to protect Charlie and her baby.

It seems God has grown tired of mankind’s evil ways and has ordered their extermination. Archangel Gabriel is only too happy to give him what he wants but Michael is unable to stop loving mankind and hopes to restore faith. He wants to give God what he needs rather than what he wants.

This naturally leads the viewer to theological questions regarding free will, God’s power and why angels would resort to bloodshed to please God. But if anyone’s familiar with the Old Testament then we can recall stories of God’s wrath; the Great Flood and Sodom and Gomorrah for example. Yet how can we know good without knowing evil? Furthermore, if evil is not necessary to know good, then why does God allow it and then punish us for it?

It’s questions like those that got me kicked out of Sunday class at church when I was a schoolboy but somehow they’ve never been answered, not sufficiently. A film like Legion, for all its other flaws, brings them back to the front of my mind.

Legion, in a similar way to The Prophecy (1995) puts humans at the centre of a war between Archangels, but this one does it without the inclusion of Lucifer. It also manages to steer clear of quoting Biblical text and concentrates more on the action and creating sideshow characters such the creepy Ice Cream Man and the elderly woman. It has more in common with The Terminator (1984), especially with Michael’s arrival in downtown L.A., robbing the store and protecting a yet unborn child who will eventually lead humanity, though this hardly makes Adrianne Palicki a gutsy Sarah Connor.

Whereas The Prophecy was rich with good and evil contrasts, Legion sticks to a different formula; its humans are flawed with only one of them expressing religious belief. It seems belief is not required to be saved.