Babylon A.D.

Babylon A.D

Babylon A.D. - Directed by MathieuKassovitz, starring Vin Diesel, Michelle Yeoh, and Mélanie Thierry - Rated PG-13

This sci-fi flick isn't awful, but it definitely isn't good.




Some of you might be rolling your eyes when you see that I'm even reviewing this movie. That might be because it stars Vin Diesel or because the director basically condemned his own film upon its release or because the preview looked completely stupid. These thoughts were definitely with me as I watched this, but I don't really hate Vin Diesel as much as most people and I'm always willing to give a sci-fi movie a chance since they seem to be few and far between these days. Babylon A.D., about a mercenary named Toorop (Diesel, doing his badass thing the whole movie) who has to escort two women from a convent (Yeoh and Thierry) to America in a kind of post apocalyptic world. Well, Russia seems to be post apocalyptic while America seems to be doing okay. Anyway, the story is overly complicated and vague and I ended up not understanding the ending at all. What was so special about the young girl Aurora? Sure, she was pregnant, but this isn't Children of Men, so why is her pregnancy so important? This question is not answered in the theatrical cut. Apparently the cut dialogue that explains her importance was one of the many problems that the director had with the film, which is why he condemned it.The unrated cut does include the dialogue and it gives a decent explanation. The issue here is why the dialogue was cut. It couldn't have been for time because the cut dialogue is less than a minute long. I just don't understand why they would cut it. The movie isn't good or anything, but to leave a major plot point that vague is plain stupid. I mentioned Children of Men above, but that is not the only movie that this film borrows from. It's basically a poor man's combination of Children and Blade Runner. The references to Blade Runner are way too obvious. Skyscrapers feature moving Coke ads! At least change the brand name if you want to pay homage to a better movie, don't just copy it completely. Oh, and I don't care if this is based on a book, Diesel's character should've have undergone a name change. Toorop? Everytime I heard the name I thought I was watching 10,000 B.C.

Babylon A.D. isn't the worst movie out there (I'm told Bangkok Dangerous is much worse), but it could've been much better. Maybe if the studio had just left the director alone. Instead, you get a mishmash of sci-fi ripoffs with a lot of ridiculous action and fight scenes that try to be cool. Sometimes it works (I actually enjoyed the snowmobile/rocket scene) but it mostly fails (about five too many slow motion rocket blasts). But sci-fi with a decent budget is hard to come by these days, so if you're into that kind of stuff, this might be worth a rental. Just make sure that rental is the unrated version.

Eric Harris - www.canneltoncritic.com

Babylon AD

Studio: Canal+

MPAA Rating: PG 13

Director: Mathieu Kassovitz

Review Rating: 7

Reviewed by Alicia Glass

In an alternate futuristic world, Mercenary Toorop takes a job escorting a girl being hunted by religious zealots as their next Messiah, the government and assassins, from Russia to America.

Apparently this movie is an adaptation from the novel Babylon Babies by Maurice Georges Dantec, and frankly if you want storyline I’d suggest finding the book. It seems much of the explanations of the plots’ minutia is sacrificed in favor of action scenes starring our dear Vin Diesel and explosions. And hey, I’m all for Diesel with what looks like a cyborg arm, covered in tattoos (that are actually mystical protection symbols that the movie doesn’t bother explaining), spouting one-liners in that gravelly voice of his while he does his level best to save the life of his charge from allll the bad guys. But really, that’s not how the movie was advertised or touted, and that annoys me.

Melaine Thierry stars as Aurora, the virgin prophecy of the Noelites, with Michelle Yeoh as Sister Rebekah her protector. And yes, while the graphics and CGI of this movie are all kinds of expensive and neat-looking, the car chase scenes where Diesel kills lots of bad guys in the most violent way possible, and so on and so forth, it just seems empty. They could’ve done so much more with the movie, and didn’t, rumor has it due to constant feuding between the director and the studio production company.

A much easier way to get semi-mindless Vin Disel action is to watch The Fast and the Furious.

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And crackers don't matter! -- Farscape

Last updated: 2010-02-09 14:53:47 by aliciamovie