God. Almighty. S/he isn’t represented in cinema all that much. Jesus on the other hand, is a proper screen hog, having appeared in more films than there have been James Bond flicks. Talk about ego. And although God doesn’t actually appear in this release, s/he does a good job with the whole omnipresent thing.

God is miffed with mankind. S/he can’t put a finger on it, but has decided to call it a day – literally. God has decided that the best thing to do is to wipe the slate clean and start over. Normally this isn’t a bad strategy, but this time it doesn’t bode at all well for humanity and all who sail in her. To get the ball rolling, God decides to send down his angels to do the dirty deed.

The thing is, it’s difficult to think of such things as angry angels; let’s face it, they just look so adorable, don’t they? Wielding automatic weapons as they do here though, kind of takes some of the shine off of those halos of theirs.

One darling of an angel however, the Archangel Michael (Paul Bettany), believes God’s got it wrong. So much so that he decides to go against his orders and pop down to Earth to put up a bit of a fight.

This fight, rather weirdly as it turns out, happens to take place surrounding a roadside diner in the middle of nowhere – called Paradise Falls – just on the edge of the Mojave desert. It’s run by Bob Hanson (Dennis Quaid), with the help of short-order cook Percy (Charles S. Dutton) and heavily-pregnant waitress Charlie (Adrianne Palicki). His son Jeep (Lucas Black) is also around, helping out with a small garage business the pair run too.

They get an inkling that all is not right with the world, when a sweet old OAP comes to the diner, only to start swearing like the proverbial trooper and behaving somewhat unnaturally – especially for a granny. She is the start of it all, the first human to be possessed by an angel to begin the destruction of mankind.

As you would expect, a diner isn’t probably the best equipped place in the world to handle Armageddon; there’s only a certain amount of room on the griddle to throw the possessed. Thankfully they have kickass Archangel Michael on hand, who’s clearly been working out, and has seemingly seen Rambo enough times to be quite useful with a gun to boot. But can one angelic upstart really take on a hostile host of angels?

Oh God, I wish walls wouldn't keep doing that. No wonder the neighbours get cross.

It’s not difficult to see why Paul Bettany would take on the role of an avenging angel; his career to date has been mostly taking roles of sensitive souls. You know the type, awfully well spoken – albeit a bit on the quiet side – and someone who would probably impress your mother if you brought them home for tea. No wonder he fancied buffing up and giving it some aggro for a change.

The good news is, he does a pretty good job of it. Whether it’s with his top off with muscles a-bulging, or having a meaningful swagger in designer wear, Bettany can walk the badass walk. He doesn’t have to do much of it either, as this is an ensemble piece. The biggest shocker here is that Quaid is prepared to take a backseat on being the lead, and settle on a supporting role. In truth it’s a juicer role for the veteran actor, and to be honest, his days of being topless on screen are well and truly behind him.

But don’t be fooled by the film’s religious overtones, it’s merely an excuse to produce a Terminator/Zombie hybrid. The Terminator aspect of the film works ok (with Michael protecting the waitress’s unborn from harm), but the zombie side feels more than a little shoe-horned and predictable. If you can overlook the notion of fallen angels possessing humans with zombie-like tendencies, then there’s some fun to be had here.

Debut director Scott Charles Stewart is clearly a fan of the zombie genre, and borrows quite a few elements from the Undead’s book of dirty tricks. And despite the fact that events are presumably happening on a global scale, the film gets away with its insular take on proceedings. Where he falls short however, is in the film’s pacing problems. There are far too many times where danger is supposedly imminent, and yet the characters have more than enough time to sit about and have a nice chat. This makes the waves of attacks on them about as surprising as rain on a cloudy day.

If the initial premise of God wanting to start again from scratch was delved into a little deeper, Legion could have offered up a curious and rewarding storyline. As it stands however, it ends up merely as an average zombie-flick with clipped wings.