BABYLON A.D. (2008) Director Mathieu Kassovitz Writer Mathieu Kassovitz & Joseph Simas Actors Vin Diesel – Toorop Michelle Yeoh – Sister Rebeka Mélanie Thierry – Aurora Gérard Depardieu – Gorsky Charlotte Rampling – High Priestess Mark Strong – Finn Lambert Wilson – Darquandier

From the first images of Babylon AD you get a serious Children of Men vibe with an angsty Vin Diesel pacing down a dystopian future street. Visually my mind is eating this up but as soon as you hear the dialogue you know this is no Children of Men and that Vin Diesel is no Clive Owen. Diesel comes off like a very lame Rambo, and this is in a post Rambo IV world. The second thing to torture your eardrums is a tediously uninspired soundtrack and score from Atli Orvarsson that feels like generic trailer music (think Immediate Music). All of this looks and sounds like something you have seen before but worse.

Vin Diesel is Toorop, an old idealist veteran who is being payed to smuggle a young girl from Russia to New York. He plays the brooding Rambo archetype to the nines. It is obvious you cannot avoid the comparisons to Children of Men when it looks like they were trying to flat out copy it, yet they lack the intelligence and creativity to put out an equal product. I’ve heard in interviews with the director, Mathieu Kassovitz(you may recognize as the porn shop employee in Amelie), that the producers ruined this film on him. It seems too interested in violence or the glorifying of it. Richard Kelly with Southland Tales presented a world where the United States had closed itself off, starving for a new fuel source. Babylon AD does not know what it is going for exactly, so therefore tries to throw the whole kit and kaboodle in.

Vin Diesel stars in Babylon A.D.

I get the feeling some person in power during the production of this film felt that it needed more dialogue, and it’s the dialogue that hurts this movie the most. When it isn’t painfully expository it is just downright bad.

So that leaves this movie, that wants to be taken as cerebral, only one leg to stand on, and that is on the action. Unfortunately the sequences are boring and poorly staged with terrible ADR layed on top of chase sequences. It has more in common with XXX than Mad Max. The DOP, who has previously worked on gems like Catwoman, is too preoccupied with the shots being cool than having any substance. There is far too much concern for the “moving” camera. And the style is cliche; for example when someone gets shot the footage slows down.

Perhaps the biggest gripe I have with this movie is the product placement. Seeing the Coca Cola  and Atari logos in Bladerunner is one thing, but after seeing this I get the feeling Coca Cola Zero looks forward to profiting from our future dystopia. Frankly I think it is in terrible taste.

By the film’s third act, Aurora (the cargo) suddenly develops martial arts abilities and Toorop (Vin Diesel) tries to do his best Neo impression. You get a mildly interesting battle in New York that goes by way too quick and then flies into a climax that ties up poorly all of the loose ends and in the run of it, forgets that it’s a climax. Babylon A.D. ends started with a whimper and ends with a whimper. If you didn’t like Johnny Pnemonic you’ll definately hate this. It’s no Children of Men as much as it wants to be.

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Tags: Babylon AD, Film, gérard depardieu, mathieu kassovitz, michelle yeoh, movie, Review, Vin Diesel