When God loses faith in man, a legion (described as an army of between 3,000 and 6,000 by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary) of angels is sent to exterminate humankind forever and bring an end to the continued degradation of our society.

These angels, instead of swooping in to take us out with wings and all, possess the bodies of weak-willed people and give them razor sharp teeth (all the better to eat you with) and the ability to shape-shift into long-limbed fast moving humanoids (all the better to grab you with) to bring about the apocalypse.

Thankfully, one of those originally meant to destroy all life on planet, archangel Michael (Paul Bettany) turns against God to protect a certain pregnant mother (Adrianne Palicki) in a diner in the middle of nowhere whose unborn baby can “deliver what He (God) needs” instead of “what He wants”.

This is Legion, 2010’s first major disappointment.

Despite a relatively decent casting which includes Bettany (A Knight’s Tale, The Da Vinci Code), veteran actor Dennis Quaid (The Day After Tomorrow, Pandorum), rapper-turned-actor Tyrese Gibson (2 Fast 2 Furious, Transformers) and Lucas Black (Jarhead, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift), the movie provides little more than a few action scenes peppered with corny, predictable one-liners.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, except that with this flick, plenty of things don’t quite seem to make sense.

First of all, despite its apocalyptic plot, surprisingly few of the good, fangless people actually die, unlike in recent similar-themed films such as The Day After Tomorrow or 2012.

Traditionally speaking, movies such as this need a good mix of both compelling action and story telling. Unfortunately, Legion had neither.

Another contributing factor is the film’s length. At just 100 minutes, there are even animated films longer than it. This means that the depth the plot can go into is compromised.

Even so, the storyline ended up pretty draggy, a far cry from the amazing trailer that released in August last year.

Action scenes, while decently put together, came at weird junctures of the movie and were unusually spaced out; the first of which occurred right at the beginning before a whole lot of dialogue comes by to put you to sleep and a final battle wakes you up again just before the close.

The action wasn’t even particularly enjoyable, as it seemed that all it took were good ol’ automatic weapons to effectively stop every wave of angel-possessed people, despite Michael’s incessant warnings that “they’re coming”. You wouldn’t be blamed for expecting more from God’s army.

Even the final big fight, in which a sea of attackers surrounded the diner causing you to truly fear for human lives, ultimately didn’t even happen as another archangel, Gabriel, gets involved by busting into the diner for a one-on-one duel with Michael, leaving the rest of the angel army standing outside like, well, zombies.

It is little wonder the film turned out so wrong. While director Scott Stewart’s resume boasts recent hits like Grindhouse, Die Hard 4.0 and Iron Man, all of which he played the part of an uncredited visual effects senior staff member, this is the first full-length feature film of his career, and it really becomes clearer as the movie progresses.

For those expecting this movie to be similar to the 2005 flick Constantine, prepare to be sorely disappointed, as Legion displays none of the plot development and character depth that the former had.

Despite this, the main protagonists’ performances were admirable albeit restrained to a certain extent by the storyline and plot. This was showcased mainly halfway through the movie when the action came to a temporary standstill, allowing some kind of character interaction.

Still, the movie overall left too many questions unanswered, which most often points towards the possibility of a sequel, but with the first movie as it is, do we really want one?

Like the apocalyptic films of the past decade such as The Day After Tomorrow and 2012, a sequel wouldn’t be required so they really should’ve tied up as many loose ends as possible.

At the end of the day, Legion displays some traits of formerly successful end-of-the-world films, but fails to deliver that final sinking punch. What a way to kick off the new decade.

Release: Jan 21
Duration: 100 min
Language: English
Rating: NC16 (Coarse Language and Violence)
Genre: Action/Fantasy/Horror/Thriller
Director: Scott Stewart
Cast: Paul Bettany, Dennis Quaid, Tyrese Gibson, Lucas Black, Adrienne Palicki