Babylon A.D. (*½)

Directed by: Mathieu Kassowitz
Starring: Vin Diesel, Michelle Yeoh, Mélanie Thierry
Seen: September 7th 2008

*½ Out of ****

In the not so distant future, a mercenary named Toorop (Diesel) is contracted to transport a young girl, Aurora (Thierry) from the Russian/East Block slums to New York. And the rest of the film is mere tricks and science fiction gimmicks to get to the end. Babylon A.D. offers absolutely nothing in terms of intelligence, intrigue, entertainment, amusement, anything…

It is merely the pasting together of scenes reminiscent of older better science fiction films – while watching, you might think back to such films as Bladerunner or Total Recall, but not because of similar quality, just because you’ll actually be wishing you’d rather have rented those oldies. The story is an unequivocal mess, and the only sense that comes out of it is that Toorop falls for the girl, which, of course, wasn’t supposed to happen.

Russia is sketched as a dangerous and over-populated war-slum, be it government or terrorist (you can’t really figure that out either way). Along the way, strange things happen while running: Aurora suddenly starts panicking and runs away from a crowded train station moments before it explodes, Aurora inexplicably understands how to operate a nuclear submarine, despite ever having been on one, etc. Now we know she is special and must be protected, but why? Where does her “power” come from, you might ask? Well, she is the virgin mother all over again, this time with twins, and the bad guys want to use the fact to start a religion, seriously.

Yes, it gets that preposterous, and still the audience is expected to tag along. Those that haven’t left the cinema yet, that is, trying to still figure out what’s going on, trying to logically “get” the film. But there’s nothing here, and this film becomes one more in a long line of never-should-have-beens. The half-star above the minimum rating then? Director Kassowitz was very openly upset with the studio for destroying his film, and whether that is true or not, I can’t help but give the half-star out of sympathy.