Babylon A.D.

Ok, I have to stray from my strictly good reviews policy to talk about Babylon A.D. and yes, it was a big disappointment. 

First off, I had pretty high expectations of this film. I personally really like Vin Diesel and director Mathieu Kassovitz is one that I plan to stick by even after this film. Kassovitz is a French actor (Amelie, Munich) and director (Crimson Rivers, Gothika). I wanted this movie to be great and was pretty disappointed to see that it came in at only 90 minutes. Seeing as how even an avid movie buff like me feels the pinch when buying movie tickets, I decided to see a matinee and save a few bucks, for an hour and a half, I didn't want to pay night time prices. 

I bought my popcorn, found my seat front and center, and sat back expecting some sort of greatness. I didn't get it. In the movie, Vin Diesel plays Toorop, a mercenary hired to transport a girl from Mongolia to the United States. The movie is based on the book Babylon Babies by Maurice Dantec. At 544 pages you might be scratching your head like I did wondering how they could cut it down so much. Well, I was right. The movie makes no sense. It's way too complex of a story to be told in 90 minutes and I left feeling totally lost. To make matters worse, it was obvious in viewing the movie that they were trying for a PG-13 rating on what should have been a rated R film. 

I had not intended to post here about it, and instead only posted on MySpace in regards to my thoughts on the film. I feel less guilty about it after reading this and the link imbedded in the article. In the SciFi Scanner article that Yahoo links to, you can see that Kassovitz's complaints mirror my own. 

I was hoping that there would be a possibility of an unrated director's cut dvd hitting shelves later on. We'll see if that happens. Like I said, I'll be sticking by Kassovitz and Diesel considering the fact that my complaints have little to do with either of them. I guess I'll just have to read the book that so inspired Kassovitz in order to find out what was really supposed to be going on.