ScreenWize

Set to become one of the least popular films of the year, Babylon A.D. is a dystopian science fiction tale based on the French cyber-punk novel Babylon Babies. The journey from page to screen – passing through the pens of four writers and a director who publicly condemned his producers for reducing the film to “pure violence and stupidity” – was clearly a troubled affair. There are glimpses of what might have been another Children of Men, but these moments of elegance and spirituality are overwhelmed by some very ordinary writing, the highly impressionistic editing of the action sequences, and a cast who are clearly bored.

Opening in a broken down futuristic Russia, mercenary soldier Thoorop (Vin Diesel) is selected by gangster boss Gorsky (Gerard Depardieu) to escort a young woman Aurora (Melanie Thierry) from a remote convent in Mongolia to a Blade Runner-like New York. Thoorop sees the girl as just a package, knowing that her successful delivery will provide him with enough cash to retire in the country. Also travelling on the perilous trip across snow, under ice and through the seedy refugee camps of Russia, is Aurora’s guardian nun, Sister Rebeka (Michelle Yeoh). As the journey unfolds, Thoorop comes to realize that there’s more to Aurora that meets the eye. She seems to have strange powers and a depth of knowledge well beyond her age. Of course he also gets to beat the hell out of a range of dodgy characters who want the girl for their own mysterious reasons.

Vin Diesel has played some memorable roles in his career, but this is not going to be one of them. Thoroop is a bumbling dullard who grunts his lines and has trouble getting a cigarette lighter to work – let alone decide which weapon he needs to fight off his many attackers. Yeoh and Thierry are much more convincing than the rest of the cast, with Charlotte Rampling’s cameo as a futuristic High Priestess wooden and Depardieu (who is bizarrely given a false nose!) just plain undirected. But it’s the story that’s most at fault here. Much is unexplained, confusing and ridiculous. When, heading towards the end, a mad scientist (complete with prosthetic limbs and a a high-tech neck brace) is called upon to deliver the “there’s much I must explain” lines, all is truly lost. The final fifteen minutes look very much like French director Mathieu Kassovitz just threw up his hands in despair. The A.D. in the title might well stands for Adaptation Disaster.

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Filed Under: Reviews by Simon