Homicide Detective Thomas Craven (Mel Gibson) investigates the murder of his daughter Emma Craven (Bojana Novakovic) who is involved in a corporate cover up and the death of three Activists.

Thomas Craven watches his daughter get killed in front of him, initially thinking he was the target he soon learns he was wrong and his daughter was in a situation at work that caused her to be the original target all along. Craven investigates her death to find out what sinister plot his daughter accidentally got herself involved in, he vows get to the bottom of it at any cost after all he is the guy with “nothing to lose”.

Mid investigation Craven meets Jedburgh (Ray Winstone) who is the guy hired by Northmoor to clean up the mess. Although Jedburgh is a cold hearted killer he feels sympathy for Craven having lost his only daughter, later we find out there is some mystery illness he has that is causing him to not get in the way of Craven and minimally help him out.

With Grandiose aspirations of creating an elaborate and complex plot that revolves around an R&D company named Northmoor secretly creating military weapons. Edge of darkness really is a much simpler story involving a father who loses the only person in his life and a straightforward cover up involving only a handful of people.

Sadly the entire movie is convoluted, one of the biggest problems is that Northmoor is not a scary company there is not enough information provided to lead you to believe that they are menacing and we never learn how glorified intern Emma was even able to come across the info that has put her life in peril.

I had multiple issues with Edge of Darkness most notably the examples listed below.

With one of the stupidest plot points in recent memory, Emma has come in contact with radiation poisoning, even though everyone knows Emma is poisoned a hit is put on her where she is killed by a shotgun, most of her torso is blown away but Thomas Craven(who was standing next to her) is miraculously not even slightly injured. Later, Thomas drinks milk that was poisoned with radiation as well, rather than let him die the Northmoor flunkies feel the need to capture him. Apparently the cool thing to do is go through the trouble of giving someone radiation poisoning, not to kill them without linking them to you but really just to soften them up, and make them a lesser advisory so you can bring them to the basement of your company.

One of the most absurd scenes is where Craven, like an old west gunslinger shoots at a car that is driving right at him, after shooting the driver side windshield multiple times the driver decides not to swerve out of the way and instead plays a futile game of chicken with rogue cop craven(Has nobody learned that when Mel Gibson is a cop who goes Rogue, you don’t stand in his way?), not surprisingly the driver is finally shot which makes him swerve at the last minute just narrowly missing Craven and ending up driving into a lake. This realism is at the center of every scene.

Both Craven and the Shadowy Northmoor Bad guys in there black SUV have multiple opportunities to kill each other but rather than just end it, a lame game of Cat and Mouse is played for no other purpose than to extend the running time. The climax of the film involves a sick radiation poisoned craven entering the home of the head of Northmoor Jack Bennett (Danny Huston) so he can have a shootout with the henchman and put an end to this nonsense. After coming into contact with Craven Jack runs to his kitchen to get his anti radiation pills, a staple of all households (I keep mine between the vitamin C and the Aspirin) but at this point Riggs Craven is in full rogue cop mode and we know it’s not going to help. Interestingly enough Craven doesn’t take any of the pills and when he gets sent to the hospital he isn’t given any of this mystery prescription either.

There is a small chance that edge of darkness could have been good but how that would be possible is beyond me.Grade-68

The Angel Michael in defiance of GOD comes to a small diner in AZ to protect a waitress whose unborn child can rebuild Humanity.

Paul Bettany stars as the Angel Michael who goes against God’s wishes to wash the earth clean after he has lost faith in mankind. Michael in defiance of the order cuts off his wings and comes to a small diner in the outskirts of the Arizona dessert to protect Charlie (Adrianne Palicki) who is with child and help the patrons fend off the hordes of the undead sent to do them in.

Legion or as it should have been referred to Biblical Terminator is not new in the story department rather than have Kyle Reese go back in time to save Sarah Connor from the deadly Terminator because her offspring will save the future, we have the Angel Michael come down from Heaven to protect Charlie from the deadly Angel Gabrielle because her offspring will save the future.

The cast includes former Sling Bade star Lucas Black as Jeep, yes jeep and the name is so stupid that every time he is spoken to, they say his name to remind you that it really is in fact Jeep.  Although Jeep was raised in Arizona he sounds like he is from the Deep South. Lucas does not even attempt to change his Alabama accent which is both sad and lazy. Dennis Quaid plays Jeep’s down on his luck Father Bob who opened up the diner named Paradise Falls (what a pun filled name for a diner that will host a battle for humanity) in the middle of nowhere thinking more development would come along that never did.  Quaid plays Bob the down on his luck schlub completely over the top in the schlub department apparently he felt watching his brother play Cousin Eddie in the original Vacation was all the inspiration he needed.

The problem with legion is its lack of consistency, an old lady can become possessed and walk on the ceiling and a small child later in the film does the same however the thousand or so other zombies that show up can only walk like Zombies. There is also an ice cream man whose limbs stretch but once again none of the other thousands of Zombies are capable of this; clearly god provides a very selective form of evil that possesses these people. There is no other explanation as to how a couple of them can walk on the ceiling but the majority of them can’t even climb a one story building to get on the roof where the patrons are shooting them.

Another interesting tidbit about the characters in legion is that apparently when you cry you can only cry out of your left eye and that is a sign that you are going to die (so hold in that Demi Moore single tear when the apocalypse comes!)

The movie is bookended by a voice over, the exact same voice over word for word, which is just stupid and the final scene of the film was completely unnecessary. Evil has been vanquished so I am not sure why Immediately after we see them on the top of a hill looking at a picture perfect town to raise the child, We then see Jeep and Charlie driving in a car stockpiled with guns like they are on their way to visit Thunderdome.

No amount of Paul Bettany can lend enough credibility to outshine the fact that this is an Inconsisten movie that stars the main characters of the Fast and the Furious 2 and 3 (Lucas Black and Tyrese Gibson). Legion is both ridiculous and nonsensical with too much generic zombie and not enough biblical apocalypse, as it stands now Legion is an enjoyable rental. Grade -75

Eli (Denzel Washington) must walk west and deliver a book which holds the power to restore mankind after an apocalypse, in his path is Carnegie (Gary Oldman) who understands the power of the book and will do whatever he must to get it.

Without one instance of an explanation as to what happened to the earth, we are immediately thrust into a post apocalyptic future where there is limited water and people have reverted back to the barter system or resorted to thievery to survive; Besides the dust and the destruction there are multiple subtle clues that catastrophe has happened primarily being the muted colors of the sky but the most obvious being that everyone wears goggles or sun glasses.

When we first encounter Eli he is hunting for food and then quickly we are shown his level of Bad Assery by telling a would be thief if he is touched one more time, said thief would lose his hand. Not a second later the hand is on the ground no longer attached to its owners arm.

Later in his travels to the west Eli enters a town run by Carnegie after dispatching some unsavory characters in Carnegies bar he is offered employment with Carnegie to help find the find book that Eli is taking to the west. Of course Eli does not falter in his quest and after turning down the extremely hot Solara’s (Mila Kunis) physical advances Eli heads back to the road. Solara joins Eli and the chase begins as Carnegie and his band of road warrior rejects attempt to reclaim the book.

Halfway through the movie you learn what the book is and the end of the film there are a couple of subtle twists that will make a person want to rewatch the film. Denzel gives a great performance and displays some hand to hand combat skills I didn’t know he had. There is ample violence and variety with Eli utilizing a machete, a shotgun, a pistol and a bow and arrow. Gary Oldman does what he does best which is play a scumbag complete with multiple close-ups of his sweaty, dirty pock marked face. What sets The Book of Eli apart is that the Hughes brothers don’t waste time with a slow back story they start you off right in the thick of it near the end of Elis quest. The ability to meld Violence and a message of hope while keeping Eli’s mystique about him is finely crafted as well.

You can go back through the film and find multiple plot holes ala how does 30 yr old gas work, how is Solara so clean and stylish given the elements and a lack of water but the creative use of weaponry and the message of the film more than make up for the shortcomings.Grade-85

Susie’s Salmon (Saoirse Ronan) is a young girl who has just fallen in love for the first time; tragically she is murdered by her neighbor George Harvey (Stanley Tucci). The police have nothing to go on with no body being found they have to treat the case as a missing person.  With no leads Susie’s family has a tough time coping with her loss and quickly grows apart. The father Jack (Mark Wahlberg) is intent on finding out what happened while the mother Abigail (Rachel Weisz) runs from the pain and the family. George soon sets his eyes on Susies’ younger sister Lindsey and Susie tries to help her family stop him.

The lovely bones is a colossal disappointment the only thing that stands out is Stanley Tuccis Awesome performance as the creepy neighbor with a penchant for murdering young girls. Tucci is truly the only reason to see this film, from his comb over and mustache combo to his hobby of building a dollhouse there is nothing that isn’t repugnant about George Harvey. On the flip side you have Mark Wahlberg who feels the need to whisper every line. The lovely bones is a film with no clear path or direction one minute Abigail is so upset she leaves her family and the next her mother  Grandma Lynn (Susan Sarandon) is in a pointless comedy montage complete with soap suds unleashed from a washing machine and extinguishing a fire on the stove with the water from a house plant. The sequences of Susie in the “in between” feel like an excuse to utilize CGI rather than advance the story and the voice over doesn’t work either.

Tucci is Amazing and the rest of this is a jumbled mess. Amazing how one person can be so good and everyone else can fall so flat. Grade -68