Babylon A.D.

Oh really?
Review by Vives Anunciacion
Inquirer Libre

Directed by Mathieu Kassovitz
Written by Mathieu Kassovitz, Eric Besnard
Based on Maurice George Dantec's sci-fi novel "Babylon Babies"

Somebody tell French director Mathieu Kassovitz to quit it. No matter what he says, or what the studio says, this is still their movie. And it sucks, big time.

Kassovitz publicly disowns the movie, which he says was edited to death (estimated somewhere between 15 and 70 minutes) by studio Twentieth Century Fox. Even if crucial pieces were taken out (which I doubt), what remains onscreen are a confusing jumble of story parts, bad dialogue and emotionally unappealing characters.

Based on the 2005 futuristic tale Babylon Babies by French punk rocker turned novelist Maurice Dantec, Babylon A.D. is a convoluted mess about cloning, corporate religion, human trafficking, psychic powers, cybernetic genetic manipulation and quasi- Christian second coming of the Messiah. Heads were shaking in confusion after the press screening.

The root premise sounds compelling: in the future, various religious sects vie for control of the post-apocalyptic world. Veteran mercenary Toorop (Vin Diesel) is hired by the Russian mafia to secretly transport a young woman from a convent in Kazakhstan to New York at all costs. The young woman, Aurora (Melanie Thierry), presumably carries something important for the salvation of the world. Joining them is Sister Rebeka (Michelle Yeoh), a nun from the convent who has taken care of Aurora since she was a child. Rebeka also acts as Aurora’s protector.

It goes without saying that mercenaries of another sect are chasing them to get Aurora. Pregnant through genetic manipulation, Aurora is to be presented as some sort of a new Virgin Mother pregnant with the new Messiah by immaculate conception. Whoever holds Aurora controls the world, or something like that. But not without much gun fighting, and exploding bombs and missiles. There’s a happy ending to all these, but I’m really not sure what for.

Vin Diesel is subjugated to perform largely the usual action pieces he has done before, including act as babysitter to an annoying ward who occasionally puts the trio in harm’s way as a result of her paranoid schizophrenia. The rest of the minor characters are flatly one-note stick people, so sad considering these characters are played by respectable artists such as Yeoh, Charlotte Rampling (as the High Priestess), Lambert Wilson (as Aurora’s creator), and Gerard Depardieu (as Russian mafioso Gorsky). It’s unclear who is fighting what, and what happens after the big explosion towards the end is downright mind-boggling. Rushed ending doesn’t even begin to explain it.

The only thing going right for this series of unfortunate scenes is a proper post-nuclear sci-fi look achieved by cinematographer Thierry Arbogast and production designers Sonja Klaus and Paul Cross. I didn’t say it’s great, just proper. The rest, to use the phrase in a different way, is history.