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Paul Betttany with wings on this brooding poster for Scott Stewart's Legion
God has lost faith in humanity (for some unknown reason), and so He sends his army of angels to annihilate us. But one woman is pregnant with a savior, and one angel fights for us. This blasphemous mess is served with terrible dialog, (courtesy of writer Peter Schink (Gotham Cafe (2005), short) and co-writer-director Scott Stewart (Dark Skies (2013))), which is so sentimental and thick as to be completely ridiculous. The only extenuating element of this awful film is some of its effects, namely a couple of its monsters, an old lady zombie and one weirdo with very long arms and legs.
Cost: 26 mil. $ Box office: 67.9 mil. $ = Box office success [Legion was released January 22 and runs 100 minutes. It was filmed in New Mexico from August 2008 - February 2009. The film opened #2 with a 17.5 mil. $ first weekend, (behind Avatar, dropping to #6 in its 2nd week), in North America, where it grossed 40.1 mil. $ (59.1 % of the total gross.) Its 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Russia with 7.3 mil. $ (10.8 %) and Spain with 3.2 mil. $ (4.7 %). A spinoff series titled Dominion was headed by Stewart for SyFy in 2014 and got canceled after its second season. Legion is rotten at 19 % with a 3.8 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
Elle Fanning looks glamorous, sprinkled in gold on a poster for Nicolas Winding Refn's The Neon Demon
The Neon Demon is the 10th film from Danish master co-writer/co-producer/director Nicolas Winding Refn (Pusher II (2004)), who has written it with Mary Laws and Polly Stenham (Eleanor (2015), short). Jesse is a young, beautiful girl who has traveled to Los Angeles to pursue her dream of becoming a supermodel. But she meet a ferocious, cynical world there that's gonna chew her up and spit her out, if she doesn't make sure to take care of herself. Neon Demon is a bit of a disappointment. It doesn't live up to the heights of Refn's recent spectacles like Valhalla Rising (2009), Drive (2011) or Only God Forgives (2013). For me it's his weakest since Bronson (2008), which I've never been able to really like. But as an avidRefn fan, I still liked Neon Demon, which is as appropriately vacuous (for a film about the modeling world), slow and periodically transgressive as to succeed in getting people to inevitably form opinions about it, (as Refn's movies usually do.) There are many things to critique about it: It's first of all too slow, I think. The long periods of faces in lights and music, (Cliff Martinez (Drive) has once again created a spine-tingling, cool, electro-score), often don't contribute enough to justify their length, and this time they bog the film down. - I'm sure I'm not alone in having wished for more story and action instead. We get very little knowledge about Jesse, and the demonic aspect (illustrated by a mysterious triangle and crystals, which seem to signify the attraction of beauty and attention that gobble up our protagonist in the course of the film) is also understated to put it mildly, (underdeveloped if you want the harsher version.) The film references The Shining (1980) and A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and is a slow, artsy meditation/very dark satire of different beauty standards, ideals and methods today, until it picks up a bit of pace and becomes more of a horror film.
A retro-styled poster for Nicolas Winding Refn's The Neon Demon
Elle Fanning (Somewhere (2010)) does well in the lead, who is innocence arriving to be corrupted, it seems, but perhaps also an innocence that is already tainted from home? SPOILER As Jesse's ego-centrism and megalomania begins to become grating, she gets killed off, and the film thus seems to come to a very sudden finish. SPOILER - But there is more, and especially the pool scene that finishes the film was an effective gross-out cap, I thought. Jena Malone (10 Cent Pistol (2014)) gives an eerie performance with maximum yuck factor; Bella Heathcote (In Time (2011)) is an effectively icy über-bitch; Abbey Lee (Gods of Egypt (2016)) is chilling; Desmond Harrington (Dexter (2008-13)) is good as probably the most sympathetic character; Alessandro Nivola (The Eye (2008)) makes a fine, arrogant fashion designer, and both Keanu Reeves (Street Kings (2008)) and Christina Hendricks (Dark Places (2015)) are good as two of the city's regular scumbags, although we get precious little of them both here, regrettably. The Neon Demonhas cool photography by Natasha Braier (The Rover (2014)) and moves around in the thematic waters of narcissism, perception of beauty, youth vs. aging, dominance-subordination and abstinence vs. carnality.
Cost: 7 mil. $ Box office: Not known yet = Unknown [The Neon Demonpremiered May 20 (Cannes) and runs 117 minutes. The film was shot in LA from March 2015 onward. Its American distribution rights were acquired by Amazon Studios. The film was shown in competition in Cannes, where Martinez won an award for his music in it. The film will open in most of its markets in the course of the summer. The Neon Demon is rotten at 47 % with a 5.8 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
