Babylon A.D. Review

Published by Jeff Leins on: August 31st, 2008

It makes it easy to review a bad movie when the director has said it all.

In an interview recently, french director Mathieu Kassovitz criticized the final cut of Babylon A.D., complaining about Fox’s overbearing involvement during production. He called the movie in theaters “pure violence and stupidity… like a bad episode of ‘24.’” I couldn’t agree more. But I’m not sure all the blame can be pushed from the compromised artist to the number-crunching studio.

Kassovitz claims around 15 minutes were trimmed in the editing room by interfering studio representatives, resulting in a confusing 93-minute runtime. But having seen the neutered version, I’m not sure where extra time could have salvaged an incoherent, poorly-acted story.

Toorop (Vin Diesel) is hired to transport a young girl (Melanie Thierry) and her guardian (an underused Michelle Yeoh) from a convent in Mongolia through what remains of a war-torn Russia to a New York City even more covered in advertising. The curious girl has special powers that make her valuable to the various corrupt factions, but the intelligent geopolitical struggle Kassovitz was aiming for is lost somewhere in the dumb explosions and gunfire. There is something about a corporate religion attempting to take over, but I must have missed the backstory when they were in the unnecessary snowmobile chase.

The premise and visual design borrow concepts from other dystopian futures (Blade Runner, Fifth Element, Children of Men), but like the cloning that is briefly mentioned in its truncated story, this movie doesn’t seem natural, a pieced together clunky machine of copied parts.

1.5 out of 5.