Sony PicturesReview in a Hurry: Angels with guns! Wing-fu! God-zombies! When Legion tries to take these kinds of things too seriously, it falters, but mostly it embraces the inner cheese.
The Bigger Picture: It seems that God's just a wee bit temperamental, and has gotten tired of human b.s., so it's extermination time. Too bad for him that Archangel Michael (Paul Bettany) somehow knows better than the being who brought about all creation, and has torn off his wings and stolen a bunch of guns in order to protect some random unborn child who will supposedly save mankind (how exactly this will happen is never explained in the slightest).
At a small desert diner called Paradise Falls (which is a pun, get it? "Falls" is a verb as well as a noun!), the final showdown begins. An unshaven, alcoholic Dennis Quaid and his merry staff of lowbrow losers, plus Michael, against hordes of God-possessed zombies, clouds of flies, and angels in armor.
We've seen many variations on this before, most of them superior: The Prophecy, Feast, Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight...but if you've already seen those and could stand another variation, this is reasonable entertainment. Nobody in the audience really cares whether or not Lucas Black wants to be a responsible daddy to his girlfriend's illegitimate kid, so those parts are a snooze, but Tyrese's 'hood rat is hilarious, as is a Satanic granny who eats raw meat and climbs walls.
Yes, the angels dress like Ben Affleck in Dogma, which is not a good sign. And it does seem pretty ridiculous that they have bulletproof wings, yet are vulnerable to such good old-fashioned techniques as a wrestling sleeper-hold. But if you wanted logic, you should have taken one look at the poster of an angel holding a machine gun and walked the other way. Needless to say, if you take your scripture seriously, you also might want to avoid this one.
It's good to see Charles S. Dutton on the big screen again, especially sporting a metal claw for a hand. And special praise goes out to Kevin Durand—the Blob in X-Men Origins: Wolverine—for his English accent and tearily earnest face as Michael's former colleague in heaven Gabriel. Director Scott Stewart, a former special-effects man, has not made a film for the ages, but he has made a decent piece of mindless entertainment.
The 180—a Second Opinion: Why on earth would you hire creature actor extraordinaire Doug Jones for your horror movie, fit him with elaborate prosthetics, and then waste him completely in a throwaway part? Bad form, Mr. Stewart.
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