Apocalypses in Theatres Now

Warning, incoming spoilers.

As odd as it seems, with studios usually trying not to step all over each other with similar releases, there are two armaggedonesque movies in theatres at this moment; Book of Eli and Legion.  Thematically, both deal with issues religious (at least on the face of them) and themes of Hope, Faith, and Redemption.  However, while Book of Eli succeeds on practically every level, Legion (which holds such germs of promise) falls flat.

Book of Eli reaches for the stars in its tale of one man's Gunslinger-style 30 year oddyssy to deliever the world's last surviving King James Bible to those who will preserve it for future generations.  Set in a world struggling to pull itself out of a post nuclear holocaust, Eli deals with issues ranging from Cannibalism and the tyranny of Resource Monopolization to the nature of goodness.  It plays with fairly deep metaphors, such as the fact that Eli's 30 year oddyssy has given him time to memorize, word perfectly, the entire KJB (imprinting it on his soul) to the fact that Alcatraz has become the repository of human knowledge (Ignorance is a Prison from which Knowledge frees us) to the fact that, at the end, Eli's KJB is placed on a shelf with all the other holy books, just one more part of humanity's past, no more or less imporant than any other.  Denzel is wonderful, as is his supporting cast  Even the George and Martha joke comes off splendedly.

On the other hand, Legion misses possibly ever mark it could have missed and still remain entertaining.  Its human characters are largely one-dimensional (A married couple and their rebellious teen daughter, a one-armed black veteran cum short order chef, a black gangbanger, a divorced cafe owner and his simple, well-meaning son, and the mother of the unborn child around which the plot revolves).  In fact, the most well rounded and sympathetic characters in the film are Michael and Gabriel (and why are they the only two arkangels who ever appear in american movies... what about Raphael, Raguiel, Remiel, Uriel, or Azrial?)

Michael, played by the always spectacular Paul Bettany, is portrayed as the loving son of a god who has lost faith in mankind and decided to destroy us all.  Never mind the covenant of the rainbow following the Flood (the flood at least gets a mention, the rainbow covenant? not so much.)  Deciding that God doesn't really mean it, that he's just frustrated, Michael decends to the mortal realm and cuts off his wings so that he can defend a child who, although it is unstated in the movie, is clearly the anti-christ (considering that his birth spawns the end of days).  Still, Charlie, the mother, explains that when she went to a clinic to get the unwanted child aborted, she felt as if to go through with this act would be to decend into a darkness from which she could never escape.  The father is mentioned only in as far as that he is not in the picture.  A better bet would have been to make the father a rapist, thus making her ambivalence about the child and sometimes hatred for it, that much more powerful and her decision not to terminate the pregnancy that much more significant.

Still, almost transparently see through characters are not the film's greatest failing.  That lies in its execution of the brilliant idea to make Angels the enemy.  Our culture is rife with angels, creatures of great and often terrible beauty.  Angels are seen as wonderful, wonderous creatures, and to depict them as villains is a wonderful twist... but the movie does so in all the wrong ways.  Angels are not demons or devils, a fact that Michael makes clear when asked if the Possessed (the zombiesque first and second wave badguys) are possessed by one of the D's (I forget which).  Michael says, "No, by Angels."  Since they aren't boogymen, they shouldn't look horrific, shouldn't be sadistic, twisted, pustulent, fly-attracting, shark-toothed nasties.  They should be beautiful... and cold, merciless, and pitiless.  By making Angels disgusting and twisted, it looses its power to shock and sadden us.

Gabriel, the film's uber-villain, is relentless, awe-inspiring, and truely a pathos inducing figure.  He does not want to kill Michael, his brother.  He is just following orders and will do whatever it takes to fullfill god's command.  He also appears too late, at the beginning of the third act (although a flashback in the second act shows him trying to disuade Michael).  A skillfull director would have shown a battle between Michael and Gabriel as the opening of the movie, shown Gabriel struck down by a winged and flaming-sword armed Michael... only to show up again at the head of a legion of Angels.  Then his relentlessness would have been beyond Terminator relentlessness, an unstoppable force whose threat does not end when he is defeated since he will return, again and again and againg if needed.  As it is, Michael is the only angel who is shown to reform after being slain, a wow moment that feels too deus ex machina as it is, but would have been stunning if Gabriel had been slain and reformed several times "By the Grace of God" something that the fallen Michael should have been lacking. 

And then there is the Terminator style Driving Off into the Sunset with a trunk full of weapons ending... please.

There are interesting moments, such as the hinting towards Michael actually being Lucifer (the rebellious angel) at least once before or use of Angel wings as armor capable of shrugging off even high power bullets) or a zippo lighter with the word Hope on it.  But, like the Zippo which appears early in the film, they are largely wasted.  The Hope Zippo, which is used near the end to great effect, would have been more powerful had the word Hope been seen early on in the film, when it's meaning isn't so significant.  This would have been forshadowing instead of just clever prop usage. 

Legion is a movie that could have been so much better, if only.  Eli is not.  It is hard to say how Eli could have been improved in any significant way.  The lessons we can take from a comparison of these two films, both of which take place in a desert and deal with faith and hope and fighting for what is right in the face of overwhelming odds are two fold.  The first is that it is better to overreach than to underreach.  To shoot for the stars and fail is better than to play it safe and still come up short.  The second is that if you really want to make a good movie, you need to commit, commit everything you have.  Don't half ass it.  Don't wimp out because you are afraid of religious zealots who aren't going to like your film regardless.  Don't make angels into zombies.  Be original, and when being original be very original.  Beauty can be even more terrifying than ugliness, coldness more-so than cruelty, and compassion more so than hate.

Good watching and Goodnight.