Featured Flick: Legion

Yes, "Legion" is another one of those apocalyptic fear trains that Hollywood seems to be running these days, especially in preparation for 2012. God is coming and he's ticked.

He's had enough of our kind, but he promised not to wipe out mankind with water again after the Big Flood. Instead he sends mutant angels that for some reason possess weak people, grow sharp baby teeth and black eyes and talk like every demon I've ever heard speak in a thriller. Oh, except for Gabriel and Michael - they're British for some reason.

So we have thousands of angels killing billions of people, but we never see that. Jeep, played by Lucas Black, has prophetic dreams about how he's supposed to save his pregnant friend's baby, but no one ever discusses why he's having these dreams. Then there is the baby, who for some reason can be killed only up until the moment he's born. No one ever says how he's special or why the angels have to bow down to him or why God - who supposedly created everything - created him in the first place or can't kill him now. We also have Michael, played by Paul Bettany, who goes against God, falls to Earth, cuts off his wings and drives out into the desert to find the pregnant woman after collecting guns at a Los Angeles toy store. Because, you know, toy stores are corrupt like that.

Perhaps most bizarrely, when the angels in human form come to kill the baby, none of them bring weapons - though we know they can use them. And despite the eerie ability for these creatures to crawl across ceilings and run like galloping spiders, they never climb the building the people are trapped in or crush the building with their bodies or the hundreds of trucks they're driving. They also disappear for long stretches of the movie, probably to confuse the heck out of other bands of survivors, which we find out exist and are also able to fend off the angels. So the power of God is reduced to a creepy set of party tricks done by ill-equipped sky sharks. By the way, do you go to hell if you kill a bunch of people possessed by angels? Isn't that like a double sin?

What's also confusing is the fight between the newly human Michael and the archangel Gabriel, played by Kevin Durand. Gabriel is the only angel that can apparently come to Earth in his true form, has wings of steel - no, I'm not kidding - that can slice a man open and carries a mace that spins like a buzz saw. He's also not human, not alive and, you would think, not susceptible to death. But no, Michael nearly manages to strangle him and avoids Gabriel's wingtips and probably God-made weapon for most of the fight.

Although this movie starts off well - with funny dialog and great facial expressions - it falls apart after the first 30 minutes. It's confusing and dull the rest of the way through and never regains any semblance of knowing what it's trying to do. The film geared up to be an Old Testament blood fest, but God lost his touch.

Contact staff writer Jordan Trippeer at jordan.trippeer@richmond.edu