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Of puns regarding ‘paradise falls’

My rating of Legion: 3 / 10
Cast: Paul Bettany, Lucas Black, Dennis Quaid, Tyrese Gibson, Adrianne Palicki
Directed by: Scott Charles Stewart
Studio: Screen Gems / Sony

Here’s Legion reviewed in one word – “laughable”.

If you insist on more words than one, then I should clarify that it isn’t a comedy movie – but that it takes itself so seriously with such a ridiculous premise that you can help but laughing.

I really feel sorry for Dennis Quaid. From The Day After Tomorrow to GI Joe: Rise of the Cobra, directors keep forgetting to tell him that the movie he’s acting in isn’t one that any sane person is going to take seriously. Dennis Quaid (with stubble) keeps on putting a heavy hand onto some young guys shoulders, stares him straight in the eye, and explains how the young guy must get out of hellhole / fix a car / wear condoms for safer sex / wear GI Joe costume at all times.

So what goes on? God has lost faith in humanity, and sends his angels to wipe humankind out. Enter Paul Bettany, an angel who fills in the role of a Terminator-type character. (He had to act in this movie because the producers didn’t have enough money to hire Arnie.) Our friendly Terminator-guy must save an unborn baby who’d become ‘the leader of the resistance’. This involves the mom and Lucas Black protecting the baby until it grows old enough to lead the resistance. Seriously God, are you kidding me? With an army of angels, you need more than a fucking decade to wipe out humankind? Guess you aren’t that omnipotent after all.

Here's an illustration of what the sane moviegoer's reaction should be to the plot. If you don't have this reaction, there's a strong possibility that you might be...Michael Bay.

The mother of the unborn baby, of course, works in a diner in the middle of nowhere (somewhere close to Los Angeles though) – with the customary no cellphone reception / payphones not working / God disconnected the landlords phone scenario. I tell you – the day USA gets 100% cellphone coverage, a whole crop of ‘enjoyable’ Hollywood movies are going to go out of business. (Although I’m sure they’ll work around that saying ‘cellphone battery’s dead’.) So you have Terminator-guy fighting angle with bulletproof wings, evil babies, and a demented ice cream man. This, in a sentence, sums up all that God could muster to kill someone he totally didn’t want born. Way to go, God. (Note – I didn’t make any of that up.)

By the way, what’s with humankind-saving children being born to waitresses around the Los Angeles area? This, surely, cannot be a coincidence?

I believe a majority of the budget allocated for this movie was used for that freakishly awesome grandma scene from the trailer from this movie.

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Again, a movie that tries to be so bad that it’s good (like Snakes On A Plane), and fails at doing so. Look kids, don’t try this at home. Making a bad movie which is unintentionally takes a lot of skill. Leave it to the pros.

On the bright note, the sleazeball Sony executives didn’t shove their Sony product placement down our throat in this movie. I half expected Gabriel and those other angels to receive orders via text message on a Sony Ericsson phone while Paul Bettany played out simulations of how to defend himself against the attack on a Sony PSP. (God, of course, would’ve been keeping a close watch on the situation on a Sony Vaio laptop.)

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The Green Zone

My rating for Green Zone: 6 / 10
Directed by: Paul Greengrass
Cast: Matt Damon, Amy Ryan, Greg Kinnear, Brendan Gleeson
Studio: Universal Pictures / Working Title Productions

Welcome to another film ‘based on real-life stories written in a book’ regarding the Iraq War. This time, it’s Imperial Life in the Emerald City by Rajiv Chandrasekaran. As we all know though, in the process of making a book into a movie it might have to stray considerably away from it. In this case, the film’s plot could be written on the back of a paper napkin.

Matt Damon is the quintessential good guy who fighting in Iraq to find weapons of mass destruction, post-war – but on ‘coming up empty’ at all sites wants to find out why the intelligence reports are bad. He barks out snarky one-liners while staring into the distance pondering on what could’ve gone wrong. The rest of the army unit, of course, are ‘just there to do a job’ and don’t ‘care about the reasons’. Such depth of character indeed!

You know why The Hurt Locker is such a good film? Because it breaks from the mould. It showed us that a war movie doesn’t need to be frenetic “Battalion is oscar mike” stuff. Green Zone is practically the same as Body of Lies, The Kingdom et al. Nothing in these last three films stands out that I’ll be able to recall as specifically being from that film, three months down the line.

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Watch the theatrical release trailer for Green Zone

What Green Zone does excel in is, again, the frenetic “Battalion is oscar mike” stuff. Paul Greengrass pulls out his steadicam and dishes us fast-paced action film with fluid handheld footage. If this film was named Jason Bourne 4.0 instead, not much would’ve changed. You’ll enjoy your time in the theatre – if you like this genre – but it’s not a ‘memorable’ film as such.

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