Caffeinated Clint
By Clint Morris
Remember ordering your lunch from the school canteen? You’d write what you want on a paper bag, put your money inside it and then hand it to one of the lovely mums behind the counter to be picked up later that day. And you’d always get exactly what you want – just what you paid for.
Wouldn’t it be nice if films were like that? You’d put your ten bucks in a paper bag, write on the bag what you’d like to get for your money, and then two hours later, feel completely satisfied because you’d be given everything you’d asked for.
Vin Diesel’s latest picture “Babylon A.D” is the school lunch order you put in without remembering to order exactly what you wanted on the outside bag. And as a consequence, someone decides for what you’d probably like to get for your ten bucks.
That someone, in this case, is the studio behind the picture – not, surprisingly enough, Matthieu Kassovitz, the director – who’s been quite vocal in his dislike for the finished product and not ashamed to point the blame finger at FOX.
FOX came to the conclusion that what audiences would like to see here is something fast, full of action and devoid of any kind of character development or brainteasing plot. “It’s got Vin Diesel in it – let’s just make it Fast and the Furious in the Future!”.
According to Kassovitz, who also directed “Gothika” and “La Haine”, that was never the intention. Te studio took what was otherwise a plot-heavy epic, extracted the intelligent stuff from it, and left the fluffy action-stuff.
And yes, he’s right. But the filmmaker is also too close to the finished product to see that it still stands up as an entertaining action movie in its own right. He says it’s now like a “bad episode of 24”. Thing is, even those “bad” episodes of “24” are entertaining – they’re never boring; always fast and fun. Kassovitz’s comments would make you believe you’re about to watch this year’s “Battlefield Earth”, when really, it’s nowhere near that bad.
Based on a book called “Babylon Babies”, the film stars Vin Diesel (in what he hoped would be his comeback vehicle) as a Veteran-turned-mercenary, Thoorop, who takes the high-risk job of escorting a woman (Mélanie Thierry) and her assistant (Michelle Yeoh), from Russia to America. Little does he know that she is host to a life form that a cult – Charlotte Rampling and Gerard Depardieu ham it up as the rogues – wants to harvest in order to produce a genetically modified Messiah.
Whilst it is evident this could’ve been a much bigger and better movie – say something along the lines of “Children of Men” – there’s still a fun movie here. The action sequences are brisk and beautiful, the production design is astonishing, and for the most part, Diesel is quite good as our tough-as-nails savior. In fact, it’s not until the half-way point that the film does take that unfortunate misstep of forgetting about the interesting scenario it has expertly set up and instead launches full-speed into “just another sci-fi actioner” territory. It’s like two separate movies – one that’s very, very entertaining, and another that’s merely OK. The profusion has understandably upset the director.
That first hour or so of “Babylon” is actually very good – the film resembling sort of a “xXx” meets “Bladerunner”. Some of the grand-scale action sequences – particularly the submarine scene – are absolutely amazing. There’s also a terrific, er, speeder-bike race (always thinking like a “Star Wars” nut) across the snowy Alps that’s – reminiscent of something from Diesel’s “xXx” – a lot of fun.
It’s in the second hour that things take a turn for the worse – the plot not only takes a monotonous turn, but a not-so-interesting one too. There was such a build up… and what’s revealed to be going on is both rather ho-hum and unsatisfactory. In addition, the film seems to race for it’s finish line after about the 60-minute mark – – indicating that there’s obviously been a chunk of stuff left on the cutting room floor around the middle of the film that the studio didn’t see fit to leave in.
Still, “Babylon A.D” is far from the worst film of the year and plays quite well as a bare-bones genre film. I think it’ll find a new lease of life on DVD.
Extras
Deleted Scenes, Numerous Featurettes, Stills (Extras Unpreviewed)
