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Babylon A.D.

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Babylon A.D. (2008)

August. 29,2008
|
5.5
|
PG-13
| Adventure Action Thriller Science Fiction
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A veteran-turned-mercenary is hired to take a young woman with a secret from post-apocalyptic Eastern Europe to New York City.

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Reviews

Moustroll
2008/08/29

Good movie but grossly overrated

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Beanbioca
2008/08/30

As Good As It Gets

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BelSports
2008/08/31

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

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Philippa
2008/09/01

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

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tieman64
2008/09/02

"Babylon AD" was all but disowned by its director, Mathieu Kassovitz, as the film underwent heavy production difficulties, 20th Century Fox mercilessly interfering with and opposing the French director's wishes.Still, this is a pretty good "scifi" (it's not science fiction) movie once you approach it from a certain angle. The film's plot, derivative of fare like "Escape from LA", "Escape from New York", "Serenity", "Children of Men" and the "Mad Max trilogy", sees actor Vin Diesel playing a mercenary tasked with transporting a young girl across a war torn, future Earth. It's familiar stuff, but the film's art design, score, sets and landscapes do well to conjure up the work of Enki Bilal, Michel Houellebecq, Jean Giraud and European cyber punk. Most of the film's action scenes are terribly corny, inserted by 20th Century Fox as a means of suckering in audiences, but look past this and the film has a nice vibe. Kassovitz and Diesel were going for a low key, grim, silent, archetypal quest, but the studios wanted talk and conventional action. The film works if, and only if, you're aware of these conflicts and self-censor what you're watching. Like cyber-punk comics, it depends on you doing all the work. On you using the incomplete images as a spring-board to imagine a world that could be.Kassovitz made one "serious" film with "Hate", but has since turned into a shameless stylist. "The Crimson Rivers", an early film of his, is arguably his best; a shamelessly lurid potboiler. Fans of "Babylon AD" advocate watching its "uncut edition". What you really want is the first half hour of the "uncut edition" (primarily for its extended opening) and the rest of the theatrical cut (for the architecturally interesting airport sets, deleted in the "uncut edition"). Neither cut is complete, and Kassovitz had little input in the so called "uncut" or "director's cut".7.9/10 – Poor Vin Diesel. He tries hard to make smart sci-fi actioners, but just can't quite manage. Worth one viewing.

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davidfurlotte
2008/09/03

In all fairness this review is based on the theatrical release and not the Director's cut which according to rumours actually has a plot that can be followed.This movie seems to have had a number of producers who sat around a table and said, "Look, "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome" did good at the box office, "The Fifth Element" did good at the box office and "The Golden Child" did good at the box office, SO, if we combine all three of these movies we should do GREAT at the box office!" UHHH...in theory that would work but they forgot one teeny, tiny detail. All three of those movies had a PLOT that people could follow without having to keep some kind of notepad around to try and figure out what had HAPPENED in order to get these people where they were and try and figure out WHAT they trying to do.*****Here there be spoilers***** Problem number one: Nobody is trying to kill our heroine (the package) so why does she need all this heavy hitting power to PROTECT her to get her to New York? Problem number two: The person who wants her IN New York represents a group that ALREADY has her as part of them. Surely with the technology available they can STILL present her as a virgin mother to the world from WHERE she is living? Problem number three: Her "father" is trying to capture her and bring her to him. WHY did he not send his specially trained group to the convent to get her? She's inside a CONVENT, not some fortress with guards and weaponry.The movie really needs a lot of filling in the blanks in order to truly be worthy of the budget that was spent. Instead of spending the tens of millions of dollars on the hi-tech special EFX it should have spent some tens of thousands of dollars on putting together a SCRIPT and a STORYBOARD that made sense to the average viewer.I enjoy Vin Diesel as an actor and I even enjoyed him in this movie, but what COULD have been a good movie is really nothing more than a big budget FLOP. All in all save yourself the brain freeze of trying to figure it out.

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Spikeopath
2008/09/04

Babylon A.D. is directed by Mathieu Kassovitz who also co-adapts to the screen with Éric Besnard & Joseph Simas from the Maurice G. Dantec novel, Babylon Babies. It stars Vin Diesel, Michelle Yeoh, Mélanie Thierry, Gérard Depardieu and Charlotte Rampling. Music is by Atli Örvarsson and photography by Thierry Arbogast.It's the future and mercenary Toorop (Diesel) agrees to do a high risk job of escorting an other worldly woman from Russia to America. Easier said than done since many others would like to obtain her as well.It's now on record as being a film that suffered many problems during production, be it the weather, studio interference (film has more producers than there were people in it!) or crumbling sets, it was a tough old shoot and director Kassovitz has disowned the film. Available now in a longer unrated/directors cut, the film is still a mess of a movie, which is a shame because the story is a hot one and the look and feel is suitably dystopian.On a basic level it achieves some expectations, Diesel is perfectly brooding and macho, we want him to punch, kick and shoot his way thru the movie, and he does. Yeoh, it would be a waste not to let her kick ass, and so she does, while a hankering for some futuristic gadgets and sci-fi babble (here in the guise of genetic manipulation) is well and truly catered for. But it's constructed badly as the film is choppy in pace and the scatter gun editing is simply awful. Quick fire camera work can work in action movies, but here it renders the action unwatchable, and is more likely to induce travel sickness than any sort of exhilaration. As for the dialogue, one is more likely to believe that it was written by a pre-teen than a full grown adult.Diesel's bruising efforts and the Cyberpunk design aside, it's a film that's hard to recommend with any sort of confidence. 4/10

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Tweekums
2008/09/05

I thought this Vin Diesel vehicle would probably be a bit rubbish; while it is no Citizen Kane it is fairly entertaining with Vin Diesel doing what he does best; going into a dangerous situation and surviving against the odds. Here he plays Toorop; a mercenary who has been hired to transport a girl called Aurora and her chaperone from Russia to New York. It won't be easy as he must get out of a chaotic Russia and get into the United States despite being on a terrorist watch list. To make matters worse both her father and a cult who believe that she is the Messiah that will give them recognition as a major religion want the girl. Their journey is action packed; involving fights, shootouts and a race across the ice on snowmobiles while being chased by deadly drone aircraft.This was a decent way to pass an hour and a half; Vin Diesel did a good enough job as our hero Toorop, Michelle Yeoh was good if somewhat underused as Sister Rebeka, Aurora's chaperone and Mélanie Thierry did a reasonable job as the enigmatic Aurora. The action was well handled; I especially liked the chase across the ice. The story itself wasn't that dazzling but wasn't bad. While this is a science fiction film don't expect vast amounts of cool futuristic gadgets; it is set in the not too distant future so most of the technology is present day, there are just a few things that don't exist. I wouldn't recommend buying this unless it is in the bargain bin or you are a big Vin Diesel fan but if it is on television it is worth checking out.

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