legion

There have been countless actors throughout cinematic history who, despite their talent, charisma, good looks and professional training, just never become stars. They pop up in mediocre to bad movies, always hinting at their breakthrough potential but never living up to it. There’s plenty of blame to go around: bad luck, bad karma, and bad agents. But Paul Bettany leads the very definition of this cursed existence.

After making a huge impression in A Knight’s Tale and Master and Commander, he’s limped from one lackluster film to the next finally coming to rest in Legion, a film for which he’s vastly overqualified and probably more than a little embarrassed to be emblazoned on the poster as a machine gun totin’ fallen angel escaped from Heaven to save us all from God’s wrath. Stitching together equal parts from Terminator and Tales From the Crypt’s Demon Knight, the film hints at worldwide Armageddon but only shows us the run-down diner where an unwed mother (Adrianne Palikir) is carrying some sort of holy child that will restore God’s faith in mankind. Dennis Quaid, Lucas Black and Charles S. Dutton are the well- intentioned rednecks that take up arms to prevent Judgment Day (although no one ever calls it that since James Cameron might sue).

Condensed into action-packed pieces, Legion makes for one hell of a trailer: possessed Grandmas crawl on the ceiling, the ice cream man stretches into a insectoid cadaver, and dueling angels stage a smackdown in the heart of the Southwest. The reality is, director Scott Stewart’s movie steals all the wrong things from all the right movies. And its central villain (God, I suppose) can’t hold a candle to Billy Zane’s devilish performance in Demon Knight or Christopher Walken’s creepy turn in the similarly divine The Prophecy. When the smoke clears, there stands Paul Bettany; a beacon of good acting in a raging sea of mediocrity. Dude, you really need a new agent.

Sony’s Blu-ray won’t leave you much to complain about, though, with featurettes on the special effects, stunts and actors, plus a Blu-ray exclusive picture-in-picture track and digital copy.