Box office Legion was released on January 22, 2010, in 2,476 theaters and took in $6,686,233—$2,700 per theater its opening day. On its opening weekend, it grossed $17,501,625—$7,069 per theater and placed second behind
Avatar. It placed No. 6 on its second weekend, and grossed an estimated $6.8 million—$2,746 per theater, a 61.1% drop from the previous weekend. The film has come to gross $67,918,658 worldwide.
Metacritic, which assigns a
weighted average score out of 0–100 reviews from film critics, has a rating score of 32% based on 14 reviews. Audiences polled by
CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C-" on an A+ to F scale. Paul Nicholasi of
Dread Central gave the film a one-and-a-half stars out of five, saying, "The finished product is shockingly bad. If countless angles of people firing guns with spent shells clinking to the ground are all your heart yearns for, then
Legion may be your ideal Saturday night. Hoping for anything more is an exercise in futility. Spare yourself the agony." Brad Miska of
Bloody Disgusting gave it 1 out of 5 stars, calling it "a prude film with some potential. It's boring, slow paced and it takes itself way too seriously."
Variety film critic
Joe Leydon gave the film a mixed analysis. Leydon claimed "Even when the blood-and-thunder hokiness of the over-the-top plot tilts perilously close to absurdity, the admirably straight-faced performances by well-cast lead players provide just enough counterbalance to sustain curiosity and sympathy." Frank Scheck of
The Hollywood Reporter also gave the film a mixed review stating, "the goings-on in
Legion are seriously silly (not to mention more than a little derivative of endless movies, especially the
Terminator series), but director Scott Stewart has provided enough stylish finesse to make the proceedings a real hoot."
Kim Newman compares the film to
Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight,
The Terminator, and
The Prophecy, stating, "In most religious-themed-end-of-the-world films—and there are more than you'd think—it's the righteous who stand against the dark. Here, it's gun-owners, which suggests how thoroughly screwed up Legion's values are." Collis Clark of
Entertainment Weekly refers to this movie as dull: "The problem lies not with the cast, and Kate Walsh, in particular, deserves some sort of medal for the scene in which she narrowly escapes being dissolved by pus. Alas, the script is a rough beast that slouches toward utter ludicrousness. 'The future has been unwritten!' intones Paul Bettany's Michael at one point. But
Legion barely seems to have been written at all." Mike Hale of
The New York Times says, "Unfortunately, the script by Scott Stewart, who directed, and Peter Schink emphasizes stagebound melodramatics and banal television-style catharsis over action and humor... Amid a bull market for end-of-days tales, 'Legion' stands out for its explicitly biblical underpinnings and its claustrophobia." ==Home media==