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''Legion'' is a 2010 American
action horror film The action film is a film genre that predominantly features chase sequences, fights, shootouts, explosions, and stunt work. The specifics of what constitutes an action film has been in scholarly debate since the 1980s. While some scholars such as ...
directed by Scott Stewart and co-written by Stewart and Peter Schink. The film stars
Paul Bettany Paul Bettany (born 27 May 1971) is an English actor. He is best known for his roles as J.A.R.V.I.S. and Vision (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Vision in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, including the Disney+ series ''WandaVision'' (2021), which garn ...
,
Lucas Black Lucas Black (born November 29, 1982) is an American actor. He plays Sean Boswell in the films for '' Fast & Furious'', including '' The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift'' (2006), '' Furious 7'' (2015), and '' F9'' (2021). He also stars in vario ...
,
Tyrese Gibson Tyrese Darnell Gibson (born December 30, 1978) is an American R&B singer and actor from Los Angeles, California. He signed with RCA Records in 1998, and released his debut single " Nobody Else" in August of that year. It peaked within the top ...
,
Adrianne Palicki Adrianne Palicki ( ) (born May 6, 1983) is an American actress and model. She is best known for her starring roles as Tyra Collette in the NBC sports drama series '' Friday Night Lights'' (2006–2011), as Bobbi Morse in the ABC superhero dra ...
, Kate Walsh, and
Dennis Quaid Dennis William Quaid (born April 9, 1954) is an American actor. He is known for his starring roles in '' Breaking Away'' (1979), '' The Right Stuff'' (1983), '' The Big Easy'' (1986), '' Innerspace'' (1987), '' Great Balls of Fire!'' (1989), ' ...
.
Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Group Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions (SPWA) is a specialty film division of Sony Pictures Entertainment. The company specializes in acquiring and producing films for a wide variety of distribution platforms. History The group became a stand-al ...
acquired most of the film's worldwide distribution rights, releasing the film theatrically in
North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...
on January 22, 2010 through
Screen Gems Screen Gems is an American film production company owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of Japanese conglomerate, Sony Group Corporation. ''Screen Gems'' has served several different purposes for its parent companies over the de ...
. A story of the
Second Coming The Second Coming (sometimes called the Second Advent or the Parousia) is the Christianity, Christian and Islam, Islamic belief that Jesus, Jesus Christ will return to Earth after his Ascension of Jesus, ascension to Heaven (Christianity), Heav ...
, ''Legion'' follows a group of people as they attempt to protect an infant savior from angels and the possessed in an apocalypse. ''Legion'' was released to negative critical reception, but was a success at the box office, earning over $67 million on a $26 million budget. A television series titled ''
Dominion A dominion was any of several largely self-governance, self-governing countries of the British Empire, once known collectively as the ''British Commonwealth of Nations''. Progressing from colonies, their degrees of self-governing colony, colon ...
'', set 25 years after the film, premiered on the American
cable television Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with bro ...
network Syfy on June 19, 2014.


Plot

The
Archangel Archangels () are the second lowest rank of angel in the Catholic hierarchy of angels, based on and put forward by Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite in the 5th or 6th century in his book ''De Coelesti Hierarchia'' (''On the Celestial Hierarchy'') ...
Michael Michael may refer to: People * Michael (given name), a given name * he He ..., a given name * Michael (surname), including a list of people with the surname Michael Given name * Michael (bishop elect)">Michael (surname)">he He ..., a given nam ...
falls to Earth in
Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
and cuts off his wings. After looting a weapons warehouse and stealing a
police car A police car is an emergency vehicle used by police for Police transport, transportation during Patrol, patrols and responses to Call for service, calls for service. Police cars are used by police officer, police officers to patrol a Beat (po ...
from a
possessed Possessed may refer to: Possession * Possession (disambiguation), having some degree of control over something else ** Spirit possession, whereby gods, demons, animas, or other disincarnate entities may temporarily take control of a human body *** ...
police officer, Michael travels to the Paradise Falls Diner, near the edge of the
Mojave Desert The Mojave Desert (; ; ) is a desert in the rain shadow of the southern Sierra Nevada mountains and Transverse Ranges in the Southwestern United States. Named for the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous Mohave people, it is located pr ...
. Meanwhile, Kyle, a single father driving to Los Angeles, stops at the diner. He meets the owner, Bob Hanson; Jeep, Bob's son; Percy, the short-order cook; Charlie, a pregnant waitress; Howard and Sandra Anderson, a married couple; and Audrey, their rebellious teenage daughter. As the diner's television, radio, and telephone fail, elderly Gladys enters the diner and becomes abnormally hostile, biting off a piece of Howard's neck before Kyle shoots her. A massive swarm of flies surrounds the diner and isolates its patrons from the outside world, thwarting their attempt to transport Howard to the hospital. Michael arrives and arms the patrons as the sky turns black. Hundreds of cars approach, filled with possessed people who begin to attack the diner. Michael leads the patrons in the fight, but Howard is dragged away. Later, Michael explains that
God In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...
has lost faith in mankind and has sent His angels to destroy the human race. He also reveals that Charlie's baby must stay alive, as it is destined to be the savior of mankind; Michael disobeyed God's order to kill Charlie's baby, as he still has faith in humanity, and believes that in the end, God's mercy will outweigh His wrath. Charlie will eventually come to love her baby, but—quite unlike the
Virgin Mary Mary was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Saint Joseph, Joseph and the mother of Jesus. She is an important figure of Christianity, venerated under titles of Mary, mother of Jesus, various titles such as Perpetual virginity ...
's acceptance of the unborn
Jesus Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...
in her womb in the
Gospel Gospel originally meant the Christianity, Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the second century Anno domino, AD the term (, from which the English word originated as a calque) came to be used also for the books in which the message w ...
s—Charlie says she hates it. The next morning, Sandra discovers Howard crucified on an upside-down cross behind the restaurant, covered with huge boils. She tries to rescue him, but he explodes into acid. Percy dies shielding Sandra from the blast. Sandra goes insane and must be restrained. Meanwhile, the remaining survivors hear a radio transmission that reveals other pockets of resistance. One such refuge is nearby, but Michael advises them not to go, since they would be too vulnerable on the move. That night, a second wave of possessed people attacks. Kyle is lured into a trap and killed, while Charlie goes into labor. Audrey and Michael help deliver the baby as
trumpets The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard B o ...
sound, signaling the approach of the Archangel
Gabriel In the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam), Gabriel ( ) is an archangel with the power to announce God's will to mankind, as the messenger of God. He is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and the Quran. Many Chris ...
. In a panic, Sandra breaks her restraints and tries to give the baby to the possessed, but Michael executes her. Moments later, Gabriel enters the diner and fatally wounds Bob. Michael urges the group to escape and tells Jeep to "find the prophets, learn to read the instructions". The hordes of possessed humans cannot approach Charlie's baby; Jeep, Audrey, Charlie, and the baby go to Michael's police car. Gabriel and Michael fight to a standstill before Gabriel stabs Michael through the chest with his
morning star Morning Star, morning star, or Morningstar may refer to: Astronomy * Morning star, most commonly used as a name for the planet Venus when it appears in the east before sunrise ** See also Venus in culture * Morning star, a name for the star Siri ...
. Michael dies, and his body disappears. Dying, Bob uses his lighter to ignite the diner's gas main and blow up the diner, incinerating himself and the remaining possessed. Jeep, his body covered in the same mysterious drawings seen on Michael's body, concludes that the tattoos are his instructions. Gabriel appears and a scuffle ensues in which Audrey is killed. Gabriel corners them in the nearby mountains and is about to kill them when Michael descends from Heaven, healed and restored to the rank of Archangel. Michael tells Gabriel that Gabriel gave God what He asked for, but Michael gave Him what He needed, giving humanity another chance. Michael says that this was God's plan to test His angels, believing they had become blind in their loyalty and that as Gabriel continues to obey blindly, Gabriel has failed Him. Ashamed, Gabriel leaves. Michael explains to Jeep that he is the child's true protector. Jeep asks Michael whether they will ever see him again; Michael simply encourages him to "Have faith", and flies away. Charlie and Jeep reach the top of the mountain and see a small town in the valley below. Later, Charlie, Jeep, and the baby drive away in a vehicle full of weapons.


Cast

*
Paul Bettany Paul Bettany (born 27 May 1971) is an English actor. He is best known for his roles as J.A.R.V.I.S. and Vision (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Vision in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, including the Disney+ series ''WandaVision'' (2021), which garn ...
as
Michael Michael may refer to: People * Michael (given name), a given name * he He ..., a given name * Michael (surname), including a list of people with the surname Michael Given name * Michael (bishop elect)">Michael (surname)">he He ..., a given nam ...
*
Lucas Black Lucas Black (born November 29, 1982) is an American actor. He plays Sean Boswell in the films for '' Fast & Furious'', including '' The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift'' (2006), '' Furious 7'' (2015), and '' F9'' (2021). He also stars in vario ...
as "Jeep" Hanson *
Tyrese Gibson Tyrese Darnell Gibson (born December 30, 1978) is an American R&B singer and actor from Los Angeles, California. He signed with RCA Records in 1998, and released his debut single " Nobody Else" in August of that year. It peaked within the top ...
as Kyle Williams *
Adrianne Palicki Adrianne Palicki ( ) (born May 6, 1983) is an American actress and model. She is best known for her starring roles as Tyra Collette in the NBC sports drama series '' Friday Night Lights'' (2006–2011), as Bobbi Morse in the ABC superhero dra ...
as Charlie * Charles S. Dutton as Percy Walker *
Jon Tenney Jonathan Frederick Tenney (born December 16, 1961) is an American actor. He played Special Agent Fritz Howard in TNT's '' The Closer'' and continued in its spin-off '' Major Crimes''. Early life Tenney was born in Princeton, New Jersey. His mot ...
as Howard Anderson *
Kevin Durand Kevin Serge Durand (born January 14, 1974) is a Canadian actor. He is known for his work in numerous film and television roles, including portraying Vasiliy Fet in ''The Strain'', Joshua in '' Dark Angel'', Martin Keamy in '' Lost'', Fred J. D ...
as
Gabriel In the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam), Gabriel ( ) is an archangel with the power to announce God's will to mankind, as the messenger of God. He is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and the Quran. Many Chris ...
*
Willa Holland Willa Joanna Chance Holland (born June 18, 1991) is an American actress and model. She is best known for her roles as Kaitlin Cooper in the Fox teen drama '' The O.C.'', Aqua in '' Kingdom Hearts,'' and Thea Queen in The CW series ''Arrow'' ...
as Audrey Anderson * Kate Walsh as Sandra Anderson *
Dennis Quaid Dennis William Quaid (born April 9, 1954) is an American actor. He is known for his starring roles in '' Breaking Away'' (1979), '' The Right Stuff'' (1983), '' The Big Easy'' (1986), '' Innerspace'' (1987), '' Great Balls of Fire!'' (1989), ' ...
as Bob Hanson *
Jeanette Miller Jeanette Miller (July 30, 1932 – November 4, 2016) was an American character actress who has appeared in theatre, film, and television series, best known as Aunt Edie on the American Broadcasting Company, ABC comedy series ''The Middle (TV se ...
as Gladys Foster * Cameron Harlow as Minivan Boy * Doug Jones as Ice Cream Man * Luke Stinehart as The Baby


Production

Principal photography Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production. Personnel Besides the main film personnel, such as the ...
took place in
New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...
in the spring of 2008. The director of photography was
John Lindley John Lindley Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS (5 February 1799 – 1 November 1865) was an English botanist, gardener and orchidology, orchidologist. Early years Born in Old Catton, Catton, near Norwich, England, John Lindley was one of four c ...
.


Reception


Box office

''Legion'' was released on January 22, 2010, in 2,476 theaters and took in $6,686,233—$2,700 per theater its opening day. On its opening weekend, it grossed $17,501,625—$7,069 per theater and placed second behind ''
Avatar Avatar (, ; ) is a concept within Hinduism that in Sanskrit literally means . It signifies the material appearance or incarnation of a powerful deity, or spirit on Earth. The relative verb to "alight, to make one's appearance" is sometimes u ...
''. It placed No. 6 on its second weekend, and grossed an estimated $6.8 million—$2,746 per theater, a 61.1% drop from the previous weekend. The film has come to gross $67,918,658 worldwide.


Critical response

Review aggregator
Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...
gives the film a score of 20% based on reviews from 104 critics, with an average rating of 3.78 out of 10. The site's consensus is: "Despite a solid cast and intermittent thrills, ''Legion'' suffers from a curiously languid pace, confused plot, and an excess of dialogue."
Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...
, which assigns a
weighted average The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...
score out of 0–100 reviews from film critics, has a rating score of 32% based on 14 reviews. Audiences polled by
CinemaScore CinemaScore is an American market research firm based in Las Vegas. It surveys film audiences to rate their viewing experiences with letter grades, reports the results, and forecasts box office receipts from the data. Background Ed Mintz, who ...
gave the film an average grade of "C-" on an A+ to F scale. Paul Nicholasi of
Dread Central Dread Central is an American website founded in 2006 that is dedicated to horror news, interviews, and reviews. It covers horror films, comics, novels, and toys. Dread Central has won the Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Award for Best Website f ...
gave the film a one-and-a-half stars out of five, saying, "The finished product is shockingly bad. If countless angles of people firing guns with spent shells clinking to the ground are all your heart yearns for, then ''Legion'' may be your ideal Saturday night. Hoping for anything more is an exercise in futility. Spare yourself the agony." Brad Miska of
Bloody Disgusting Bloody Disgusting is an American independent multi-media company, which began as a horror genre-focused news website specializing in information services that covered various horror media. The company expanded into other media including podcast ...
gave it 1 out of 5 stars, calling it "a prude film with some potential. It's boring, slow paced and it takes itself way too seriously." ''
Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
'' film critic
Joe Leydon Joseph Patrick Michael Leydon (born August 22, 1952) is an American film critic and historian. A critic and correspondent for '' Variety'' since 1990, he is the author of ''Joe Leydon's Guide to Essential Movies You Must See'' (Michael Wiese Pro ...
gave the film a mixed analysis. Leydon claimed "Even when the blood-and-thunder hokiness of the over-the-top plot tilts perilously close to absurdity, the admirably straight-faced performances by well-cast lead players provide just enough counterbalance to sustain curiosity and sympathy." Frank Scheck of ''
The Hollywood Reporter ''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Cinema of the United States, Hollywood film industry, film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade pap ...
'' also gave the film a mixed review stating, "the goings-on in ''Legion'' are seriously silly (not to mention more than a little derivative of endless movies, especially the ''Terminator'' series), but director Scott Stewart has provided enough stylish finesse to make the proceedings a real hoot."
Kim Newman Kim James Newman (born 31 July 1959) is an English journalist, film critic, and fiction writer. He is interested in film history and horror fiction – both of which he attributes to seeing Tod Browning's ''Dracula'' at the age of eleven & ...
compares the film to ''Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight'', ''The Terminator'', and ''The Prophecy'', stating, "In most religious-themed-end-of-the-world films—and there are more than you'd think—it's the righteous who stand against the dark. Here, it's gun-owners, which suggests how thoroughly screwed up Legion's values are." Collis Clark of ''Entertainment Weekly'' refers to this movie as dull: "The problem lies not with the cast, and Kate Walsh, in particular, deserves some sort of medal for the scene in which she narrowly escapes being dissolved by pus. Alas, the script is a rough beast that slouches toward utter ludicrousness. 'The future has been unwritten!' intones Paul Bettany's Michael at one point. But ''Legion'' barely seems to have been written at all." Mike Hale of ''The New York Times'' says, "Unfortunately, the script by Scott Stewart, who directed, and Peter Schink emphasizes stagebound melodramatics and banal television-style catharsis over action and humor... Amid a bull market for end-of-days tales, 'Legion' stands out for its explicitly biblical underpinnings and its claustrophobia." Peter Bradshaw in ''The Guardian'' says, "Not many horror movies have the decency to let elderly performers steal the show. But Jeanette Miller walks off with this one, in the robustly written role of a potty-mouthed satanic old lady who takes a fatal bite out of someone's neck. Paul Bettany plays the particularly badass angel who comes to earth in an attempt to stop God and his heavenly armies from wiping out humanity."


Home media

''Legion'' was released on
DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...
and
Blu-ray Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of high-defin ...
on May 11, 2010.


Television

In 2014, Syfy began airing the television series ''Dominion'', a sequel set 25 years after the end of the film. Scott Stewart, the writer/director of ''Legion'', served as executive producer. Stewart also directed ''Dominion''s pilot episode, which was written by Vaun Wilmott and aired on June 19, 2014.


See also

*
List of films about angels This is a list of films where angels appear. Angel films are sometimes discussed in relation to Peter L. Valenti's definition of the 'film blanc', a variety of fantasy film characterised by "1) a mortal's death or lapse into dream; 2) subsequent ...


References


External links

* * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Legion 2010 films 2010 horror films 2010s action horror films 2010s fantasy adventure films 2010s supernatural horror films American fantasy action films American fantasy adventure films American supernatural horror films American action horror films Adventure horror films Supernatural action films Apocalyptic films Films about angels Films about spirit possession Films adapted into television shows Films directed by Scott Stewart (director) Films set in Los Angeles Films set in restaurants Films shot in New Mexico Films scored by John Frizzell (composer) American pregnancy films Bold Films films Screen Gems films 2010 directorial debut films 2010s English-language films 2010s American films English-language action horror films English-language fantasy adventure films