Review: ‘Babylon A.D.’

Jeremy:

It’s got to be a shame to have a dream project, almost get it completed, and have the company that is backing it swoop in at the last minute and ruin it. So goes the case of ‘Babylon A.D.’. Mathieu Kassovitz (‘The Crimson Rivers’, ‘Gothika’) had been working on adapting the French novel, Babylon Babies, for five years. The production of the film was no walk in the park. The start of production was postponed time after time, originally slated to begin in February of 2006, then in June, then in February of 2007 to be wrapped and released by Thanksgiving of that year. In March of 2007, a two-week hiatus was taken to deal with weather issues. In April, the film was reported to be over-budget and three weeks behind schedule. Filming was finally completed in May of 2007, and, then, post-production kicked in.

‘Babylon A.D.’s distributor is 20th Century Fox, and much has been said about the control they take once a film enters the editing room. Editor Nicholas De Toth was brough in to edit ‘Live Free or Die Hard’ down to a more commercial, PG-13 rating. On ‘Hitman’, director Xavier Gens was removed, and, once again, De Toth came in to give the film a more martekable appeal. ‘Babylon A.D.’ was taken out of Kassovitz’s hands and altered to meet the studio’s sensibilities. The director has even gone on record as saying the film is “pure violence and stupidity” and that “the script was not respected.”

Kassovitz’s concerns with the film are absolutely valid. ‘Babylon A.D.’ is a film that holds a number of good ideas. There are several elements about the film that are more than interesting. However, sitting and watching the film, you know through and through that it was chopped all to hell in the editing room. Many of the action scenes are rushed through. There is so much quick and choppy editing in those action scenes that it is very hard to make out what is going on. A few of the action scenes, the more important ones, no less, seem to just end.

The trailers for this film make it seem like a vehicle for star, Vin Diesel, but it’s not. Diesel is not, surprise, surprise, a good actor. His appeal is that he is cool and he looks good standing in the middle of an action set piece. He belongs nowhere in this film, and simply seeing him on screen becomes a distraction.

The story, set in the near future, is about a mercenary who must take a woman from Central Asia to New York in six days. He knows nothing about the woman other than she is very important and many people want to get their hands on her.

The screenplay deals with a number of important issues. Religion, poverty, genetics, and global warming are just a few. Obviously, I don’t know what Kassovitz’s original intentions were in telling this story, but I have the feeling any messages he set out to make about any of these issues were completely lost in what has been released.

Likewise goes for the film’s unique look. This is a beautifully shot film with French cinematographer, Thierry Arbogast, behind the lens. The sets are incredible. The costumes are great. There are just enough little, European touches to the things we see on screen that would have easily set this apart from your average action flick. The idea of including the Latitude/Longitude coordinates whenever a location subtitle pops up is original. The visuals over a nuclear submaring coming up through a frozen over ocean is very unique. The inclusion of a mixed martial arts fight inside a Plexiglas box is something we haven’t seen before. ‘Babylon A.D.’ is filled with a large amount of unique and interesting ideas that have not been seen before, and, somewhere in there, there is a really great film just dying to get out.

Unfortunately, a bad editing job can disrupt all that originality and drive the film’s original purpose right out the door. What we are left with is an illogical, almost unwatchable piece of action nonsense, and the studio is to be blamed in large part for this.

I wish instead of remakes most studios would start making “do-overs.” I wish Bryan Singer could do ‘X-Men 3’ over and totally negate Brett Ratner’s film. I wish John McTiernan could get the opportunity to do another ‘Die Hard’ that would erase ‘Live Free or Die Hard’ from existence. I wish someone would give Kassovitz $100 million and free reign to maket he film he wanted to make. It could have easily been a beautiful and epic action movie that would have been near the top of my list for the year. As it is, ‘Babylon A.D.’ is totally forgettable and makes you pray there is a Director’s Cut DVD somewhere down the line.

[rating:2.5/5]

Ram Man:

I should have known better than to check out Vin Diesel’s new Sci-Fi action flick Babylon A.D. They didn’t screen it and  director Mathieu Kassovitz (Gothica) came out right before it was released and said “this is not the film I intended to make”..aka …this movie is going to blow! Not to mention in the opening of the movie Vin Diesel tells you he’s going to die, it’s a buzz kill!

It’s sometime in the future, I can’t tell you when because they don’t tell us. It seems to be post WW3 and half of Russia is radiated from the bomb. We meet Toorop (Vin Diesel) ex Marine turned mercenary for hire. He is living in Russia after being banished from the United States as a terrorist. Head of the Russian Mob, Gorsky (Gerard Depardieu with a bad make up job) sends a small army battalion over to pick up Toorop, who never goes quietly. Gorsky hires Toorop to be an escort for a girl that needs to be delivered,under the radar, to New York in 6 days. Toorop takes on the task for  a meeger $500,000 dollars because its his way of getting home. The girl, Aurora (Melainie Thierry) and her chaperone Sister Rebeka (Michelle Yeoh) are picked up and then transported across Russia, through the Bering Sea in a Russian Submarine, then into Canada on Snowmobiles. Canada is no push over anymore. They monitor the frozen tundra with attack drones that kill anything that moves. The action sequence right out of the winter X-Games on ESPN, then ensues with Toorop shooting down planes while flipping his snowmobile through the air.

The threesome do make it to New York. Along the journey Aurora begins to exhibit some odd behavior. In this film it almost goes unnoticed. A religious zealot, the High Priestess (Charlotte Rampling)Â  of Neolite is the one behind the delivery of the girl. Unbeknown to Toolop, Aurora is the next coming of the messiah, the new virgin Mary that will put the Neolite on the map and allow their religion to rule. So Toorop decides to keep the girl and let her live in piece instead of being an icon and in constant danger. So Toorop and Sister Rebeka take out the Neolite army and Gorsky’s thugs (if he has Russian mafia in New York why does he need Toorop) and refuse to deliver the girl. This is a waste of Yeoh’s talent in the role of babysitter.

There is no character development, background story and hell, you don’t know when we are talking about. The film seems to have been edited by a chef with some Ginsu knives. The trailer gave the film some promise and does have some action on snow mobiles but that is it. I can only hope there is an original full length film somewhere that we will see what the director really had in mind before the studio took the weed-eater to it.

  [rating:1/5]