Babylon A.D. Review

[Hombre]

This movie was adapted from Maurice G. Dantec's epic novel "Babylon Babies". Now, I have not read the book, but I did do a little research on it before I saw the movie and what I learned is that book goes into great detail in analysis of post-Soviet conflict strategies and has a philosophical take on bio-engineering. If this sounds familiar than it should because "Children of Men" starring Clive Owens was almost the exact same movie. Mind you, "Children of Men" was a much better movie.

After an awesome opening action sequence that really showcases the future of CGI in motion, the movie flashes to a week before to war torn "New Siberia" where mercenary Toorop (Vin Diesel) sits out of the action in his boarded up apartment. He's dressed all preppy and shows no conviction to what is about to occur. He barely flinches when a SWAT team knocks down his door to apprehend him to bring him to Gorsky (Gerard Depardieu- who has a prosthetic nose which I deemed very unnecessary). Gorsky is a Russian mafia head who is offering a significant payoff if Toorop delivers a package to New York.

This special package is indeed very special...as it is an animate object, a pretty young lady who's just as mysterious as Toorop, and she happens to by a nymph-Aurora (Melanie Thierry), who has been hidden away in a convent under the protection of a nun. Instead of questioning why there is such a hefty price for border smuggling a woman, Toorop shows no emotion, tries to light a cigarette and the three set off.

The first destination they trek to is Kazakhstan, which showcases one of the movies better action scenes when a bomb detonates a local train station. After this the group makes it's way to a Vladivostok night club that features UFC style fighting to the death matches, this is where Toorop meets up with an old war buddy, Finn (Mark Strong), who joins the team and the four of them set off.

The next action sequence has them setting across the Bering Strait on snow mobiles. The director here chooses to go with handheld cameras instead of the wide scene cameras, and it really cuts out the scenery that would leave you breathless. It really takes away from all the action that is going on because the camera is so shaky. The shoddy camera work also takes away from Toorop's supposed hero skills. Which I think the director was trying to get across but failed at doing so.

They finally reach New York...which has 100 more buildings and a million more billboards...they prepare to hand Aurora over to the Neolite Priestess, who is in charge of the corporation that employed Toorop on his journey. This doesn't go according to plan.

As I was watching this movie, I had terrible flashbacks to "The Fifth Element" (Frech produced, big movie star) and "Children of Men" which I thought it tried too hard to be. The film fails largely due to it's lack of character development and it's large generalization of a futuristic society that has been done before.

At first glance it would appear that Vin Diesel has reprized his role as Richard Riddick from the "Chronicles of Riddick" movies...but alas, this movie isn't even as good as those and I thought the Riddick movies (COR, and Pitch Black) were below average flicks. Diesel just seems to go with the motions in this movie, not really caring what's going on around him.

It's a decent action movie, but it tries to be more than that when it tries to throw philosophical and ethical thoughts at you. All it ends up doing is bridging the action scenes.

2 stars out of 5

[Reizo_PR]

:/ Two stars...Oh man, I thought this would be a good movie...Oh well.

You thought Riddick wasn't amazing...The last movie was awesome, the first one was kinda lame...

[Hombre]

I thought it was an alright movie...it was entertaining none the less...it's just been done before

[Fletch627]

DAMNIT, Hombre!

You always beat me to it. Then again, I always see the late night showings. =]

But once again, you and I differ. I thought this movie was great.

4 out of 5 stars.