Thursday, August 28, 2008

Movie Review - Babylon A.D.


Yesterday, me, hubby and a group of friends rushed through the massive jam in the city after the heavy downpour to catch the premier screening of Babylon A.D. We won the tickets through an online contest so imagine our surprise when a girl jumped out and were practically shoving a bunch of tickets in our faces before we even get near the booth to collect our tickets. “Take them, they’re free tickets”, she was saying as she displayed the tickets like a magician would with a deck of cards. That ought to have triggered alarm bells that the movie is just a whole lot of bullshit.

Initially, I wasn't really interested in going when I saw that the male lead is Vin Diesel. Anyone who is nicknamed after a petroleum-based fuel can't be that good an actor to start with. Vin Diesel was actually just playing a role that he has played so many times before. A tough guy hit by a sudden conscience out to save the world. How many times have we seen that? I was yawning 15 minutes into the show.

"I'm SO tough I eat nails for lunch! (Nah, it's really just bunny meat)"

Set in the near future, the story basically revolves around the mercenary Toorop (Diesel) and his job of getting a package (young pretty blonde thing - Melanie Thierry) accompanied by her 'nanny' (played by our very own Datuk Michelle Yeoh) safely from Mongolia to America. What he doesn't know is that the girl carries within her a virus that could threaten all of mankind. Oh shudder.

"Do we look like we spend nearly all our lives in an isolated convent?"

Apart from the action-sequences, which can actually be very headache-inducing at the best of times, there is nothing else worth spending your time and money on this particular movie. Adapted from a French cyberpunk novel by Maurice G. Dantec called ‘Babylon Babies’, the movie version is just a mesh of stupid storyline, no plot, lousy acting, corny dialogues and a most exasperating ending. All of us were like 'Huh?' when it ended. That's it, motherfuckers? That’s the end?

I can almost hear the director shouting to the cast and crew, 'Hey guys, let's wrap this up quickly, we only got 5 minutes left. I'm running out of film!" I mean, the ending really leaves the audience baffled as to what just transpired. According to Wikipedia, director Mathieu Kassovitz has expressed outright disgust with the distributors, 20th Century Fox, for removing the movie from his control and altering it significantly. He described the film as "pure violence and stupidity" and that "parts of the movie are like a bad episode of 24." I couldn't have agreed more.

This has got to be the worst movie I have been to this entire year! Ptuit!!!