Review: Babylon A.D.


Set in rundown future Serbia, mercenary Vin Diesel is assigned by a Russian mobster (Gerard Depardieu) with the task of escorting young Melanie Thierry from a Mongolian convent (!) to safe harbour in New York. The teen girl (who has never left the convent) is accompanied by her nun guardian Michelle Yeoh. Apparently there’s something truly special about this girl, something that everyone would kill for. Charlotte Rampling plays a sinister High Priestess and CEO of a church (though her only belief system appears to be ‘power’), whilst Lambert Wilson is a man from Thierry’s past.



Although its future world depiction is at first glance more interesting than the overrated and quite similarly-plotted “Children of Men” (a total snore if you ask me), this troubled Mathieu Kassovitz (yeah, the “La Haine” guy) flick from 2008 is mostly a crushing bore. Hell, even Kassovitz himself publicly trashed the film, supposedly stymied by the big studio behind the film (20th Century Fox) and beset by a whole swarm of other problems on set (bad weather etc.) It sure had a great trailer though, one that misled me into thinking this was going to be the best Vin Diesel vehicle to date. It looked cool and seemed to have an interesting post-apocalyptic storyline. And hey, it’s got Michelle Yeoh, too! Sadly it doesn’t even earn the small distinction of being the best Vin Diesel vehicle to date. It is however, better than the first two “Fast and the Furious” films, but then, those two are putrid non-entertainments, so that’s hardly a ringing endorsement.



The whole thing is so grim and dour and not at all the blockbuster entertainment the trailers seemed to suggest. Depardieu looks to be having fun aping Sydney Greenstreet by way of Anthony Quinn, in the film’s best turn, but he’s not in it enough, and did he really need to be dubbed and given a prosthetically-enlarged nose? Meanwhile, Wilson (who doesn’t suck for once) plays a less sinister character than usual, and is frankly, more impressive than Rampling, who is bloody awful in her completely nonsensical role. Shameful waste of the talented Yeoh, it really does seem like Hollywood has no idea what to do with her (Aside from “Tomorrow Never Dies”). If any film needed the patented dose of Vin Diesel swagger, it’s this one, but sadly he’s all glum anti-hero here in what amounts to a dull mixture of “Escape From New York”, “Blade Runner”, “The Fifth Element”, and “The Children of Men” (None of which I’m much of a fan of). The film isn’t stupid, brainless, or offensive, it’s just entirely one-note, dull, and frankly disappointing. The action might’ve been enjoyable if Mr. Kassovitz (or the ‘suits’ forcing his hand) could keep the camera focused on anything for more than two seconds.



How could a trailer lie to me so? This is a real slog. No surprise that this is set in Eastern Europe, as everything’s so bleak, and we get the requisite Eurotrash score by Atli Orvarsson that is so not my thing. Apparently the director’s vision was shorn of about 70 whopping minutes (!) by the studio, but no matter the length, I can’t see this being improved terribly much.



Rating: C-

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