Ever seen a movie that’s so bad it’s good? Of course you have. We’re not even talking about Uwe Boll’s movies, so laughably awful and incompetent that the torturous irony is what draws audiences, but cinematic events like Commando or Con Air. Movies so gloriously, heroically dumb that the right company of friends, some large tubs of snacks and a leveling of any and all expectations can turn into a guilty pleasure. The two aforementioned films aren’t candidates for Mystery Science Theater or Rifftrax. These aren’t cult B-grade movies like Robot Monster. They are A-list Hollywood blockbusters winking at us, with ridiculous lines and scenery-chewing performances amidst absurd action set-pieces and endless explosions. It’s the multiplex’s closest approximation to a monster truck rally.

Legion is like that. Trailers were ominous, hinting at a combination of western and apocalypse films. The posters were titillating shots of Paul Bettany (The Da Vinci Code, A Beautiful Mind) bearing angel wings, Biblical tattoos and, of course … submachine guns. Anticipation ran the gamut from post-modern religious satire to intelligent action film. And of course, the cynics expected a fat ham of wasted celluloid.

No one was quite on the money. First-time director Scott Stewart possesses no vision whatsoever and the movie he delivered wasn’t much of anything. Appropriately, advance screenings left the film torn to critical ribbons.

That being said, Legion is an entertaining thrill ride. If it had to be a monster truck, it would be Gravedigger. The film is a 100-minute hailstorm of bodies.

The premise? Apparently God has gotten sick of our race’s collective gangbanger/money-grubber nature. Rather than leave us to global warming, The Jonas Brothers or Roland Emmerich’s 2012 earthquake, God decided to unleash “the dogs of Heaven.” It’s not a familiar phrase, because Heaven’s where the good guys go, right? No. Not in this movie. And who commits to the apocalypse against mankind? Angels. Not the rosy-cheeked ones perched atop your yuletide conifer, but something reminiscent of the girl from The Exorcist with a shark’s grin.

Except for Bettany, or Michael, in this case. He and his nemesis Gabriel dress like Ben Affleck and Matt Damon in Dogma, all armor and spikes wielding medieval maces. Until Michael gets more of a conscience than God himself, claims he has greater faith in humanity, and decides to defy the Lord and defend mankind. With submachine guns.

I guess Michael hasn’t read much John Milton or listened to much classic heavy metal. He should have heard what happened to the last angel that went all punk rock teenager against the Creator.

On a seemingly unrelated note, a diner in the middle of the California desert is inexplicably provided as the scene of Armageddon. We are introduced to a number of stock characters who matter less than their collective crises of faith, delivered in long and surprisingly well-written monologues. We get veteran character actors like Dennis Quaid and Charles S. Dutton overacting (as accented hick and overly religious man, respectively) to an unprecedented point of distraction, like strip club neon signs. At least they are having fun with the material. Tyrese Gibson (Transformers) plays a drifter named Kyle, who reminds us that all black males who aren’t Tiger Woods or the current president must carry a handheld firearm. Lucas Black (Friday Night Lights) plays a kid inexplicably named Jeep, who inexplicably has the hots for pregnant Charlie, played by Adrianne Palicki (TV’s Supernatural). Jeep and Charlie. Sounds like a different kind of romance, like a boy and his first 4x4.

Oh, and Charlie is eight months pregnant by another man. But because Jeep loves her anyway, Michael has faith in the human race. Oh, and Charlie’s baby, the one that isn’t Jeep’s, will also serve as the next messiah if it survives the apocalypse. So the army of Hell’s Angels (not the bikers this time) want her dead. We don’t know how or why the human race needs another J.C. but we’re just assuming the movie will tell us. J.C. can stand for Jesus or John Connor in this scenario.

There’s a great scene where Jeep’s father tells his son about the futility of love and dreams, using the desolate diner as a metaphor for Jeep’s love for Charlie. There’s another one where Michael tells Jeep why little bits of selflessness are humanity’s last shot at salvation. These are calm lulls between endless barrages of gunfire. The diner, aptly named Paradise Falls, becomes the Alamo against the hordes of angel-possessed humans arriving by car like a zombie-fied convoy of Grateful Dead fans.

There’s not much more to the movie. Lots of bullets launched against waves of possessed people, lots of blood, lots of creepy demonic children, lots of stupid decisions getting the expendable ones inside the diner to run outside and get eaten or whatever. There’s a fistfight between an ex-angel with a machine gun and an armored angel with razorblade wings and a mace that somehow lasts for more than five seconds. And just when you think, for once, that both hot girls will survive, a guy-girl-ratio variation on Ebert’s Law of the Economy of Characters occurs.

And yet, Legion holds attention and suspense, even though the all know how it’ll end. That, friends, is a movie so bad it’s good.