LEGION.

I've been pretty psyched for Legion for a while. I just knew that, at the very least, it'd be a fun romp into the realm of cheesy B-horror. And what I got was... well... Michael (Paul Bettany) decides to come down to Earth and shed his wings to help the humans. But no, not just any humans. The most important of the humans: a pregnant girl named Charlie (Adrianne Palicki) who lives with a mechanic named Jeep (Lucas Black) and his diner-owning father, Bob (Dennis Quaid). Also 'round these parts is the cook, Percy (Charles S. Dutton); a lost traveler, Kyle (Tyrese Gibson); a father (Jon Tenney), mother (Kate Walsh), and their semi-slutty daughter, Audrey (Willa Holland). Of course, as we learn from the trailer, Charlie's unborn baby is going to save humanity... they just have to stay alive from the legion of angels that are bringing on the apocalypse by killing humanity and trying to get to Charlie. But what exactly is the baby going to do to save humanity? Why do the angels come off more as demons? What did he mean that the angels aren't necessarily the good guys? If God truly wanted to wipe humanity out completely, couldn't He have just thought it into happening or something? Why do the possessed dudes just kinda stand there near the end? Why is one specific character allowed to live so long if said character is just going to die a meaningless and unseen, off-screen death near the end of the movie? What's written in that angelic message? Who (and/or what) the fuck are the prophets? And did anybody else picture Jay and Silent Bob hopping over one of the cars with hockey sticks at that point? Stay tuned, because all of these questions (and more!) are never even remotely discussed, much less answered, in Legion!

At least the first 20 or so minutes of the movie feels like a running joke of "I'm trying waaay too hard." From the burning-cross hole in the side of the building to playing It's A Wonderful Life on the TV in the diner (which is named Paradise Falls, somewhere outside L.A., the "City of Angels," as it were). And so many other things in between. The rest of the movie plays like an ultimate collection of cliches, from character actions to the cheesy one-liner.

I know this has mostly felt like a negative review, but there is some positive. Paul Bettany and Kevin Durand are wonderful in their respective roles (albeit Kevin Durand having way too little screen time prior to the climax of the movie). And Willa Holland is hot (and she is 18, so I can say that). There is some pretty decent comedy, too. There's also some good action--mostly once Kevin Durand comes into the picture, because before that, it's mostly just an endless stream of bullets. And it's always nice to see Doug Jones, although his Ice Cream Man role (which is a good chunk of the trailers) is pretty much just what you see in the trailers. He's on screen for maybe a minute tops.

There's also some good camera angles and cinematography. Despite having a shaky script, there actually was some good direction. It kept the movie fresh, and the visuals (in those respects) certainly weren't boring. The CGI was a bit dodgy in places, but there wasn't much of it, so that's good.

But I'd say the movie's biggest downfall is its script. Besides the aforementioned issues with almost nothing being explained, there's some iffy dialogue, as well as a feel that they tried to flesh out every character, but never could quite make it past the surface with each. There's also a "twist" at one point that... well... shouldn't really be a twist. It's treated as one, but when you hear it (and when the characters are reacting all 'wtf mate'), all I'm thinking is "yeah... OK, didn't we already know this? I mean, he never said it directly, but taking what he did tell us, I'm pretty sure you could figure it out by association. Literally." Their reactions were just a bit too... nonsensical for the timing. Or something like that.

Anywho, I didn't hate the movie. I just didn't particularly love it. It'd be a good one for a rifftrax of some sort, I'm sure. I suppose I'm just easily entertained and not easily perturbed as others are. The little things usually don't bother me, and it takes a lot for a movie to get one of my lower scores. If there's any semblance of entertainment (and, again, easily happens to me), it gets some points. So... yeah.


Stop Saying Okay! Okay.

(P.S. Why, if they lived in California, did Mr. Tokyo Drift have a southern accent... and why didn't his father?)

X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE.

I want to start off by saying I don’t read the comics, but have seen all the movies and used to watch the old cartoon from time to time. That being said, during the movie, with a few scenes as exceptions, I was really enjoying it. But then, after it was over, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized how much I didn’t like about it.

James Logan (Hugh Jackman) and Victor Creed (Liev Schreiber) are mutant brothers with the ability to heal and grow things from their body. After many years of fighting wars, and with Victor getting more and more violent and unstable, they are recruited into a special program by William Stryker (Danny Huston). There, they work with other mutants such as John Wraith (Will.i.Am), Fred Dukes/The Blob (Kevin Durand), Chris Bradley/Bolt (Dominic Monaghan), David North/Agent Zero (Daniel Henney), and Wade Wilson/Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds). But Logan doesn’t like what they’re up to, so he quits and moves to Canada, where he falls in love with a school teacher, Kayla Silverfox (Lynn Collins). But when Victor shows up again, apparently killing all the old team, Logan seeks vengeance. And on the way, he seeks help from Remy LeBeau/Gambit (Taylor Kitsch).

As the movie starts off, we’re given some rather rough acting off of a pretty bad script from some child stars. This didn’t excite me whatsoever. But then it gives us a pretty good title sequence of wars-through-the-years that made up for it. Unfortunately, it starts to go a bit downhill for a while after that. The pacing of the film prior to Logan getting the adamantium is off. It’s too fast and choppy, never giving us enough time to really get to know or care about anybody.

But then he gets the adamantium skeleton and things start to get a bit better. That is, until they bring in Gambit, and I realize exactly what the biggest flaw of the film really is—much like the recent Dragonball movie, it’s just a checklist. They even toss in Scott Summers/Cyclops for what just seems to be for the hell of it (though there is a cool cameo at the end that comes from it, so that is a plus). Otherwise, we get introduced to some really fun characters—Wade Wilson and Gambit at the top of that list—and then get them yanked away again. After Ryan Reynolds’ brilliant introduction, he disappears from the movie almost completely (trying to avoid spoilers here).

Gambit has a fun introduction, as well, but he deserves a paragraph all to himself. You know how when they were going to include Gambit in X3? But then they cut him from the script because he wouldn’t have had much screen time and they wanted to give the character justice for the fans (well, that and they couldn’t get Sawyer from LOST)? Now just imagine how Gambit would have been like had he been in X3, and that’s basically what you get here. He has, maybe, a total of 10 minutes screen time in the entire film. Same goes with Ryan Reynolds.

In fact, it’s that way with the majority of the characters who aren’t Logan, Victor, Kayla, or Stryker (and Kayla is questionable, too, really). Outside of Logan, there is no character depth whatsoever. Everybody is basically a flat character, just there to move the story along and nothing else. And I think the next issue somewhat stems from that, which I didn’t really realize until after I’d thought about it for a while. But there’s really very little depth to the movie at all. It’s a basic revenge tale, and that’s it.

But this isn’t all negative. The characters of Logan and Victor are fun to watch, and Hugh and Liev play them well (though Hugh has had quite a bit of practice with his). In fact, outside a character here and there, the acting was pretty good. Not to mention the action was also great. And there’s enough humor and explosions to keep your mind away from the fact that this movie is mostly disappointing.

Then we come to the special effects. There actually were some questionable CGI moments. Maybe it was just me, but a few of the times when Logan shows his shiny new claws (primarily in the old couple’s bathroom), they looked incredibly fake. And then there’s The Blob. When Kevin Durand shows back up in the movie about halfway through (or so), he’s gotten, well… bigger. But instead of JUST wearing a fat suit, they apparently added some CGI fat. You heard me right… CGI fat. It was absolutely ridiculous. Every time I saw a graphically enhanced jiggle, I wanted to groan.

Overall, though, the movie actually was entertaining. It was by no means as horribly awful as the early reviews made it out to be, but it is rather disappointing. They could have done so much better with this. They needed to tweak the script a bit, maybe remove some characters and give more time for development. Maybe make the movie a bit longer to help out. And they could have at least tied up a few loose ends. What the hell happened with Victor? You just… don’t see him again. After a movie building up their relationship, you would expect even a little bit of closure before the memory loss (oh, and how did Victor lose his memory, anyway? That’s never explained, either). And if any of you have heard of the scene after the credits, don’t bother. It’s the lamest after-the-credits scene ever. Actually, there are two scenes after the credits roll. One is not long after the credits start, and the other is at the very end, after they’re over. It adds absolutely nothing to the story, doesn’t give a new twist… all it does is give us an insanely lame and cheesy line, and then a headache for sitting through the what-felt-like endless credits.

One thing is for sure, though. They need to have a Deadpool spin-off movie (or at least a Deadpool reboot, but keep Ryan Reynolds). I actually think I heard whispers about that anyway, so that’s cool. Anywho, it wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t great, either. It was just alright. I gave it the following score because it was entertaining enough to make me not be too disappointed… but it still could have been better.

Stop Saying Okay! Okay.