In Legion, God loses faith in mankind and so he sends his legion of angels to bring on the apocalypse. Humanity’s only hope lies in a group of strangers trapped in a desert diner and Archangel Michael.

Legion also stars Dennis Quaid, Lucas Black, Tyrese Gibson, Kate Walsh, Adrianne Palicki, Charles S. Dutton and Willa Holland.

In an interview transcript ­provided by Buena Vista Columbia Tristar, the movie’s distributor in Malaysia, Bettany said he came on board the project based on director Scott Stewart’s pitch. “His ­presentation was so slick. I said, ‘Wow. This sounds really fun’. And then he said, ‘We’re going to do ­angels, but they’re going to be tooled up with loads of weapons’.Then, I started going on the Internet and looking at pictures of angels and they’re all tooled up with ­weapons actually.

They really are with armour and spears and swords. So, we didn’t actually stray that far from that image, except we gave the angels guns.”

On his role as Archangel Michael, Bettany said it is his character who apparently is the first to fall down and worship mankind. “In our story, he’s the last to turn his back on them because he won’t. God has turned his back on mankind and Archangel Michael hasn’t lost faith.”

This would be Bettany’s first out-and-out action flick and he worked hard on his role. “That’s a lot of pressure. I’ll step up because I’m an actor. Listen, we set out to make a roller coaster, rip roaring, fun, shoot ‘em up, action thriller, escapist movie. Then, I finished that job and then I went to play Charles Darwin. I have never been in an action movie before, and you know what? If I am in a similar sort of movie, I’m usually the bad guy. So, it was really flattering and fun to be the hero in this one, be a good guy.”

One of the stand out scenes of the movies is a showdown between Archangels. “There’s a big battle at the end of the film between me and Archangel Gabriel (played by Kevin Durand) who is enormous in size. He’s like six foot seven or six foot eight tall. ­

“Throughout the filming of the movie, we were learning piece by piece and rehearsing this very complicated fight between us. Consequently, I got really close to the stunt guys who were amazing. That’s what it’s all about, it’s an action movie and you’re doing the action sequence at the end. It is so fulfilling in a kind of boyhood ­fantasy way of making movies.”

Legion is now showing in cinemas nationwide.