What the hell is that on your hand, Vin Diesel? You look silly, take it off! (Babylon A.D. (DVD))

Member Name: pmcds

Product:	Babylon A.D. (DVD)
Date:	23/03/09 (108 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Some good FX

Disadvantages: Where to begin..................

When I watched Vin Diesel in Pitch Black, I thought it to be a fine film, requiring hardly any acting from the big man. The Chronicles of Riddick was similar, although he had a little more to do, and the FX were over the top. Throw in XXX and the strangely amusing Pacifier, and although there is nothing special, he doesn't have a bad run of films.

So, yeah, about that stat there, Mr Diesel. Has the author of Babylon Babies, the book upon which Babylon A.D. is based, seen what you've done to his work? I imagine he'll be disappointed, and I suppose that's putting it mildly. For Vin Diesel's latest hard-ass action offering is a badly acted, filmed and explained hour and a half of futuristic nonsense that resulted in a frown on my face for the majority of the credits as I racked my brain to try and remember when exactly I had fallen asleep and missed what the hell was supposed to have just happened.

Babylon A.D. is set in the future, as mercenary Toroop (Diesel) is hired by Russian gangster Grosky (Gerard Depardieu) to transport a young woman to New York. The road is fraught with danger, and the woman, Aurora (Melanie Thierry) is accompanied by nun Sister Rebeka, a sort of bodyguard nun from Aurora's nunnery where she has spent most of her life.

Set in a time where streets have become more slum-like and crime seems to have taken over, Toroop leads the two women from danger to danger as we start to realise that there is more to Aurora than meets the eye. Our trio of travellers are accosted by a group of goons, apparently sent from Aurora's supposedly dead father to take her to safety. Later on, we also meet goons from the other side, sent by Aurora's mother. And this is how I became confused. Toroop, the most untrustworthy mercenary, is tasked to take a woman safely across dangerous lands using only land and water transport, when both her parents want to use their considerable power and wealth to do so in a more practical manner. Surely, they must be evil, right?

Er, well, I don't really know. There is surely more to Aurora than meets the eye, and we do get snippets of this throughout the film from time to time, and she does seem to have an uncanny knack of knowing when somehing's going to happen or what someone's thinking, when she gets anxious and her heartbeat rises, and in essence, this does seem to be the very reason her mum is trying to keep her from her dad and vice versa. I lost track of who was who and who was supposed to be dead, and when they started going on about genetics, I was lost.

Upon reaching the end of the film, I confess I had to have a quick online search to get a recap of exactly what I had just watched, as I really didn't get it. The plot synopsis and detaile layout that I read cleared things up for me (light dawns on marble head!), and I actually realised that what I had seen had the potential to be a very good plot. With elements reminiscent of Jean Claude Van Damme's Cyborg, this could have been 10 time better than it was, but the stop start nature and poor acting and filming turned it into a mass of confusion with pointless being the order of the day.

The scenes didn't roll smoothly into each other, and while there seemed to be some pretty impressive work with some special effects, this is where the good points end, I'm afraid. It wasn't quite as bad as Alone In The Dark, which I watched recently, although that at least had an understandable plot, nor was it as pointless as Ultraviolet, but I can honestly say I wish I hadn't watched it. It wasn't Vin Diesel's finest hour, in fact it's definitely the worst film I've seen him in, and not even the addition of some usually fine cast members such as Charlotte Rampling and Michelle Yeoh could do anything about it. If anything, they only added to the disappointment.

Overall, I can't recommend this film, which will come as no surprise to you. I'm just glad it only ran for an hour and a half and there were at least some decent explosions!

Summary: A very disappointing and confusing film