The Future’s So Dystopian, I Gotta Wear Shades | Vin Diesel headlines another crappy post-apocalyptic action flick; this time it’s Babylon A.D.
Directed by Mathieu Kassovitz. Starring Vin Diesel, Michelle Yeoh, Gérard Depardieu, Charlotte Rampling.
Now playing.
* 1/2
Rather than blab away about what I think about Babylon A.D., the new dystopian action film starring Vin Diesel, why don’t I let director Mathieu Kassovitz have a crack at it? Here’s part of an interview he did with AMC’s Sci-Fi Scanner last week: “I’m very unhappy with the film. I never had a chance to do one scene the way it was written or the way I wanted it to be. The script wasn’t respected. Bad producers, bad partners, it was a terrible experience... Parts of the movie are like a bad episode of 24.”
Oh.
When a director actively sabotages his own film before it’s even released in theatres, you know things aren’t looking good. And while Kassovitz does a pretty good job describing the mess that Babylon A.D. eventually became, we’d still better go through the motions and try to make some sense of this turkey.
Diesel is Toorop, a strangely named retired mercenary who’s trying to get by under the radar in the kind of gritty, decrepit future that, quite frankly, audiences could use a fucking break from at this point. You know the kind: shadowy corporations run everything, all religious people are fanatics, and schlock sensationalism has replaced culture outright.
For reasons that are never really made clear, Toorop is recruited to transport Aurora (Mélanie Therry), a Virgin Mary-like young woman who has never left her isolated convent, and her mentor Sister Rebeka (Michelle Yeoh) from Siberia to New York. Toorop is the equivalent of “too old for this shit,” Rebeka will do whatever it takes to keep her ward uncorrupted by modern filth, and Aurora performs basically the same narrative function as the princesses you have to transport to safety in old Super Nintendo RPGs — which is to say that she does the exact opposite of what she’s told at every turn, and walks directly toward every trap and distraction imaginable.
Also swept up into this motley crew’s journey are, in descending order of believability: a crooked smuggler, a Ski-Doo battle, cyborg parents, immaculate conception, a diabolical politician/high priestess (played by Charlotte Rampling), injectable passports, the power to come back from the dead at will, and American Apparel hoodies. (That being said, it is oddly satisfying to see those infamous two-tone sweatshirts as the unofficial uniform of dystopia.)
Still, while there’s no disputing that this is a terrible film, I feel the need to swim somewhat against the current and stick up for parts of it. I like the intensity of the Northern Lights CGI effect, for example, and I like how every building in New York has gaudy animated billboards built into its sides. There are also moments that hint at real complexity, like when Toorop drifts off into a sexual daydream and then snaps out of it, only to realize he’s inches away from kissing the ever-chaste Aurora, who’s standing two inches away, lips aquiver, in a skimpy tank top and underwear, looking more than ready to spoil her purity.
I like to imagine that there are other scenes just like this, ones that poke with curiosity at these dystopian stereotypes rather than half-assedly recreate them, scattered somewhere on the editing room floor — because if they do exist, they sure didn’t make the final cut, as Kassovitz himself would be the first to point out.
