Writers: Peter Schink/Scott Stewart
Director: Scott Stewart
Distributor: Screen Gems
Legion has a couple of okay moments. Bettany does what he can with the material and makes a decent lead, and the action is nice and bloody and not shot horribly. However, the action doesn’t happen nearly as much as it should. There are about three to four action scenes and the rest of the time is exposition central with the characters all talking and getting to know each other. That would have been fine if the characters were interesting, but they aren’t. Everyone seems to be sleepwalking through their roles. Quaid hams it up as usual but unlike GI Joe, it isn’t in the good way. Charles S. Dutton is…well, he is what he is. Everyone else isn’t even worth mentioning at this point. The cast did not need to be this large for any reason whatsoever.
Because of all the talking, when the action does happen, you aren’t in the mood to watch it because you have just been bored silly by all the dialogue and attempt at character building. It feels like the movie was trying to be a drama rather than action, but if that was the case, the action should not have been as intense, and they should have gotten a way better script to work with. Legion is also a shamless rip-off of the Terminator series, right down to the end scene. You’ll understand if you ever decide to see this for some reason.
Legion takes a cool concept and takes a big ugly cinema dump on it. It tries to be two different movies and doesn’t commit enough to either to be able to be taken seriously. The dialogue is laughable and the acting is horrible (save for Bettany), and it’s so implausible and stupid that it’s hard to just “shut your brain off”. If I were you, I’d avoid this at any cost. God can make a great villain, just not here.