Film Reviews

Babylon A.D.

• Rating:
• Director: Mathieu Kassovitz.
• Starring: Vin Diesel, Michelle Yeoh, Melanie Thierry, Mark Strong.
• Details: US / France / 101mins (12A).

Adapted from Maurice G. Dantec's novel, Babylon A.D is an '80s action movie for kids who have never seen an '80s action movie. After a cool opening shot (a zoom from space that falls right down into Diesel's iris), the action moves to futuristic Russia where mercenary Toorop (Diesel) is given a mission by gangster Gorsky (Gerard Depardieu): escort Aurora (Thierry) and her minder, Sister Rebecca (Yeoh), from Mongolia to New York. Simple? No. Aurora may or may not host an organism that a religious cult - headed up by High Priestess and Aurora's mother (Charlotte Rampling) - want to harvest to genetically engineer a new messiah. Although promising to be a top action adventure fantasy road movie hybrid, there's nothing fresh about Babylon A.D.; the derivative plot played is out by hackneyed characters spouting stale lines: - "The border is ten miles away!" - "Then let's make it a fast ten miles!" (Exclamation marks are theirs) and - "We're on the verge of becoming a bonafide religion and it's going down the tubes!" (That one from Rampling, and again the exclamation marks are not mine.) It's hard to believe that this twaddle is directed by the same man who brought us La Haine. To the director's credit, however, he has to commended for at least one element: where most movies that tackle dystopian futures slow the plot down to explain where we are, when we are and what's happening now, Kassovitz keeps the action moving, letting information dribble out only when absolutely necessary so the plot gets wider as the story moves on. Oh, and the submarine emerging from the ice is pretty cool, too. That's all the positives that can be taken from it, though.

Review by Gavin Burke