 "Photo: Courtesy Photo")
In the future, there will be amazing advancements in the world of mirror technology. Future Mirrors Inc. will declare that glass is a primitive tool for twentieth century simpletons. Thus, in the future, mirrors will not be made of glass but instead we will finally be able to see our reflections as semi-pixelated video images! Forget the undeniable clarity of a true reflection in glass and the noticeable inferiority of a video mirror. This is the future!
You may be wondering what this has to do with "Babylon A.D." This actually has a lot to do with "Babylon A.D." because the moment that Vin Diesel stares into the video mirror, is, unfortunately, the most interesting part of the movie. This may, however, come as good news to mirror enthusiasts.
Vin Diesel plays tough guy Toorop, an American expatriate mercenary living in Russia at an unspecified point in the future. We can only be sure his name is Toorop from the credits. At several other points in the film I also thought his name was Tulip, Toros, and Two Ropes.
Toorop is recruited by the suspicious Gorsky (Gerard Depardieu) to escort a young woman (Melanie Thierry), who we are told is very important, from a convent in Mongolia to New York City. Michelle Yeoh plays Rebeka, a sister at the convent who accompanies them on the journey. When she meets Toorop, one of the rules she lays down for the trip is that no swearing is allowed. Toorop responds by telling her his one rule, which involves him swearing. Uh oh!
The future in "Babylon A.D.", This actually has a lot to do with "Babylon A.D." because the moment that Vin Diesel stares into the video mirror, is, unfortunately, the most interesting part of the movie. This may, however, come as good news to mirror enthusiasts.
Vin Diesel plays tough guy Toorop, an American expatriate mercenary living in Russia at an unspecified point in the future. We can only be sure his name is Toorop from the credits. At several other points in the film I also thought his name was Tulip, Toros, and Two Ropes.
Toorop is recruited by the suspicious Gorsky (Gerard Depardieu) to escort a young woman (Melanie Thierry), who we are told is very important, from a convent in Mongolia to New York City. Michelle Yeoh plays Rebeka, a sister at the convent who accompanies them on the journey. When she meets Toorop, one of the rules she lays down for the trip is that no swearing is allowed. Toorop responds by telling her his one rule, which involves him swearing. Uh oh!
The future in "Babylon A.D.", as with many fictional futures, is dystopian. Russia seems to now be a third world nation, with refugees making mad dashes into secret submarines at the Bering Strait. At one point, a character mentions global warming and the lack of ice on the Strait; strangely enough, the filmmakers had trouble finding locations for the film with enough snow because of unseasonably cold temperatures. As I mentioned earlier, the most interesting part of the film was the video mirror, and it was the film's vision of the future, no matter how ridiculous, that really held my interest. A nice touch in the film occurs on a train, when the windows and doors are sealed up because the track goes through an irradiated city that has an enormous crater at its center. Also, there's a nifty map that Toorop uses to plot the course of the trip. The map seems to be made out of paper, except it is electronic and has all the capabilities of something like GoogleMaps, where one can zoom in and out. As far as the futuristic cityscape goes, the makers of "Babylon A.D." seem to have restrained themselves and do not attempt to create a New York City that's as technologically advanced and awe-inspiring as "Blade Runner's" Los Angeles. I can say that there are some strange buildings and some more neon lights, but the city didn't have enough screen time to let me draw any other conclusions.
And so Toorop, Rebeka, and the young Aurora embark on their journey to America, which also happens to be a journey into a mindless action film. And I like mindless action films. However, this one is especially mindless with unexciting action. Sure, there's a gang of parkour (freestyle walking) ruffians, a fight club in the Russian equivalent of a rave, several very large explosions, and a chase scene between snowmobiles and robot jet fighters, but all scenes are shot and edited incoherently much of the time. At one point during a car chase I was very aware that the bad guys drove Range Rovers and that things were going boom, but everything else was pretty hazy.
"Babylon A.D.", in spite of itself, tries not to be mindless. In an unnecessary and awkward opening narration by Toorop, he explains that his story is one of redemption, in which he finally starts caring about other people besides himself, except that this moment occurs, he says, on the day he dies. The implication is that Aurora will be his own personal Cindy Lou Who and will make his heart grow ten sizes that day. Aurora has lived in the convent all her life, and is severely disturbed, emotionally and physically, by the harsh world around her, contrasting with Toorop's indifference to the savage world he lives in and the savage acts he is forced to commit. Unfortunately, this aspect of the story is handled clumsily, and when the big moment comes, it is not an emotional revelation, but a whimper among assorted bangs in the background. We just don't care.
The essential problem with "Babylon A.D." is that the screenplay never allows us to become emotionally involved with the characters. The lines they utter are clunky, generic, and utilitarian. Sometimes the film's pace speeds up so startlingly, with little to no explanation about the events occurring, that we are left anxiously trying to digest previous events while new and even more ridiculous ones start piling up. Much of the film is unintentionally goofy or silly when it should seem serious, with the tone being an uneven mishmash of ridiculous futuristic cartoon action and a serious look at a dystopic world. Both kinds of films can be done well, but not at the same time. And what we thought was merely a sub-par action movie becomes a truly terrible one once the trio makes it to New York. Suddenly the film takes a very supernatural turn, and a series of revelations and events occur at an astounding speed that keep getting more and more preposterous, with the only possible explanation for the insultingly stupid twists being, essentially, "Hey, it's the future!" In short, I had a sickening feeling at the end of the film that I'd been cheated.
"Babylon A. D." does manage to accomplish one feat. One scene comes to a complete halt when we see a passenger jet and it has, where the airline company's name should be, a monstrous ad for Coca-Cola Zero. Is this supposed to be a comment on American consumerism? Somehow "Babylon A.D." has managed to combine social critique with shameless product placement.
How about this for a more interesting movie: Vin Diesel plays an up-and-coming advertising executive in the future who miraculously convinces the public that the video mirror is indeed a viable product. Or maybe this: there would be the same basic plot about a reluctant hero leading an important young woman and her caretaker to a specific place in a dystopic future, except some very crucial things would be different. Maybe the main character wouldn't be a standard macho action hero but an ordinary guy who seems out of place in dangerous situations. And maybe the caretaker wouldn't be a martial artist, but an overweight middle-aged woman. And maybe there wouldn't be flashy special effects with computer-generated objects flying at the camera, but more
understated and subtle effects used to achieve technical feats rarely seen in the movies. And maybe instead of wobbly and choppy action sequences there would be masterfully shot and intricately choreographed scenes of breathtaking intensity. And instead of "Babylon A.D." it would be called "Children of Men."
It should be noted that apparently the director, Mathieu Kassovitz, has distanced himself from the film and has actually voiced many of the same criticisms I've made. He says that the studio took control of the project, completely changed and influenced the movie during filming, and re-cut the film against his wishes. The theatrical cut is one hour and a half. And how long is the movie with all the deleted scenes? Approximately one hour and forty-five minutes. Perhaps we'll see this epic director's cut of "Babylon A.D." on DVD, since it was too agonizingly long to be seen in theaters?
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