How to explain Babylon A.D. … Okay, how about this: Babylon A.D. is the movie Children of Men would have been had it been directed by Ridley Pearson and edited by Ed Wood. Vin Diesel’s Toorop is the Clive Owens character; Michelle Yeoh’s Sister Rebecca is the Julianne Moore character, and Melanie Thierry’s Aurora is the girl whom Toorop must deliver from Russia to the United States – and for a similar reason.
Director Matthieu Kassovitz is on record as saying that Babylon A.D. is not the film he made – that it’s been re-edited by the studio and is vastly inferior to the film he created. Judging from the mangled editing of the many fight sequences [and you thought Batman Begins’ fight sequences were hard to figure out] and the drastic changes in overall tone from epic and sweeping to grungy and claustrophobic, I’d have to say that it’s entirely possibly that he’s right.
Diesel is energetic and hard as Toorop, but we probably were expecting that. Yeoh is enigmatic and wise as Sister Rebecca, but that’s not asking much of her. The surprise comes from Melanie Thierry who is quite possibly too ethereally beautiful to be believed – either that or the camera just really, really loves her.
It’s hard to tell if Eric Besnard’s script is any good because of the editing. God knows, there are enough signs of intelligence and, possibly, wit here to suggest that it might well be very good. The only problem is that whatever there might have been to add surprise and freshness to this unexpected hybrid of Blade Runner and Children of Men has been excised – leaving us with something that neither involves nor satisfies.
I hope Kassovitz gets a Director’s Cut when the DVD comes out. I’d love to see why he’s so adamant that the theatrical release is not the movie he made.
Final Grade: D+
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