Legion

Legion starts off with such promise: a small group of mismatched (but well cast) strangers gather in a run down (but carefully art designed) desert truck stop. An unusually massive storm is rolling in from all sides, and suddenly the TV, the radio and telephonic contact is cut. They’re completely isolated. This is all painted so broodingly and so ominously, it’s almost Stephen King….

But then, then, Legion goes badly wrong. Like off-the-rails-head-on-speeding-train-smash wrong. It doesn’t help that after laying such interesting foundations, the unfolding plot is complete baloney – snitty God sending Legions of Angels to wreak an apocalypse on hopeless humans. (Legions are associated with Demons, surely, and Demons, not Angels, have the bad attitudes and the pointy, rippy incisors? – there’s only so much myth-revisionism you can swallow before the ability to suspend disbelief is choked.) It also doesn’t help that much of the action unfolds at night, and it’s all so badly lit that you just can’t tell what’s going on. But by this stage, neither do you care.

Incidentally, the deserted truck stop was purpose built for the movie in a place called Galisteo in New Mexico – one of those really-small-town-USA’s which has a stonking great population of 265. The filmmakers were searching for a location that looked like an iconic truck stop in the Mojave Desert, so they built it in New Mexico. “This was one of the first locations I saw,” says the Director. “And I knew that this was the spot. It had great vistas in all directions and a physical concavity that suited the situation. If you filled this area with water, it would pool at the diner and that’s kind of what happened to our characters.”

More on the Making of Legion at the SciFiTVZone.