Monthly Archives: January 2010

So me, Meg, Rachel, and Lance went to see Legion last night. All indications pointed to it being awful and we knew that going in. The trailers were awful, the reviews were awful, and my aunt said it was atrocious. But we went anyway because we’re cool like that and man was it awful! But seriously, I don’t think I’ve had that much fun in a movie in a long time. At one point, I was laughing so hard I could barely catch my breath. And it was sad because you just knew the makers thought they were making this awesome, badass movie.

So what was so bad about it? Well, there will be loads of spoilers in this review, so stop reading if you’re avoiding them. First off, everyone kept talking so dramatically and taking… all these… dramatic… pauses… that it took them forever to say anything! That was the main indication that these people thought they were making a masterpiece. And it’s not even like the action was good either. You could hardly see anything that was going on. At times, the camera would just focus on the guns firing for about 1 minute straight with no indication of where they were shooting or who was getting shot. Oh! And at one point Paul Bettany pulled out a bazooka out of nowhere! It was seriously something out of Airplane! So so so ridiculous.

And the story made absolutely no sense. God gives up on humanity and decides to wipe it out. But instead of sending a flood like last time, he sends the angels to take over human bodies and essentially turn them into zombies to kill a baby who will save humanity. Okay first off, didn’t the flood work out really well last time? Like, really well. So why doesn’t God just stick with that? Secondly, they tried to do this whole Terminator, the baby saves mankind kinda thing. But then God calls off the apocalypse at the end because Paul Bettany showed him the error of his ways or something, so the baby did absolutely nothing. Way to be completely useless, baby!

Oh, and Gabriel (played by Kevin Durand who was not shirtless once and had a seriously funky accent) comes at the end to be the bad guy and kick Paul Bettany’s ass, which begs the question: Why didn’t all the other angels do that? Why did they have to take over human bodies where they were able to get shot and die? Like, Gabriel was super strong and nearly invincible (His wings were bulletproof! He came back from the dead about twenty times!). Why didn’t all the other angels just come as they were? Like, my brains hurts just thinking about it.

And they couldn’t even give me the one scene I wanted with all the angels flying like the hawkmen in Flash Gordon! All day I was singing “dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun!” in anticipation! Oh, and Addison was there which made me sad because not only was she banished to a terrible spinoff show, but now she’s appearing in awful movies. And there was a character named Jeep. Jeep! The only good thing about the movie was the old lady scene, which was a lot longer than what you see in the trailer and was actually pretty amusing. But that was it. Otherwise, it was a hysterical piece of crap.

So me and Michelle went and saw Daybreakers over the weekend. For those of you who don’t know, Daybreakers takes place in the year 2019 where almost all humans have been turned into vampires. Ethan Hawke plays a vampire scientist who is trying to find a blood substitute since humans are on the verge of extinction, and Sam Neill plays his evil vampire boss. Anyway, it was really good. I thought the story was excellent and the action was all really well done. Ethan Hawke made a likable main character, and Sam Neill is amazing as usual and makes an excellent villain. I liked the fact that the vampires stayed true to vampire lore (burning up in the sun, stakes in the heart, not being visible in mirrors) rather than the toned down vampires we seem to be getting so much of lately.

What I liked most about it was how well planned out the world was. I love the Underworld movies, but they never give you a sense of what the vampires’ lives are like. In Daybreakers, you see how they live and the restrictions they face since the sunlight kills them. For example, when Ethan Hawke gets a flat tire at one point (during the day, the cars have a cool daytime driving feature) the tire re-inflates itself. Under normal circumstances that would just be a throwaway “future” thing. But here, it’s a necessity since vampires would be stranded if they had to wait for the sun to go down so they could get out and change their tire.

If I had any complaints it would be that there was a bit too much gore. I can almost understand the appeal of gore in cheesy horror movies, if that’s the only thing it has going for it. But the story in Daybreakers was so good, it didn’t need the gore, and it just felt gratuitous. Another complaint would be that it took itself a tad too seriously. Everyone was very glum, and didn’t seem to find the fact that the world was overrun by vampires as amusing as I did. I hate the idea of a comic relief character, but some joke cracking wouldn’t have hurt. Anyway, it’s definitely worth checking out if you’re curious!