Cast: Vin Diesel, Michelle Yeoh, Melanie Thierry, Gerard Depardieu, Charlotte Rampling; Director: Mathieu Kassovitz; Producers: Alain Goldman, Mathieu Kassovitz; Screenwriters: Eric Besnard, Maurice G. Dantec; Music: Atli Orvarsson; Editor: Benjamin Weill; Genre:Sci-Fi/ Action/ Adventure; Cinematography: Thierry Arbogast; Distributor: Twentieth Century Fox; Location: Eastern Europe, Alaska, Canada, New York; Running Time: 90 min.;Technical Assessment: 2.5
Moral Assessment: 2.5
CINEMA Rating: For mature viewers 18 and above
Toorop (Vin Diesel) is a veteran turned mercenary hired by an aging wealthy ally Gorsky (Gerald Depardieu) to smuggle a young girl Aurora (Melanie Thierry) and her guardian nun Sister Rebeka (Michelle Yeoh) out of Mongolia, via Russia and Eastern Europe (after the breaking up of the USSR) to New York. They have to pass through dangerous train depots and border checkpoints, board an old Russian submarine and traverse with snowmobiles a vast expanse of security drone-policed arctic tundra of Alaska and Canada. Toorop does not exactly know the purpose of his mission but surmises Aurora must be carrying a deadly virus or something important. Aside from the dangers they face in the devastated places they pass through, they are relentlessly being pursued by an armed group headed by a High Priestess (Charlotte Rampling) of a religious cult. There are attempts to kidnap Aurora. She seems to know things she has never experienced though the only world she has known is the orphanage-convent where she grew up. Aurora also reveals she is pregnant with twins though she has had no sexual experience. Not knowing exactly the facts of his task, Toorop is distrustful of all. Aurora is unpredictable. What awaits the trio in New York if they ever get there?
Based on a little known novel titled Babylon Babies by an equally obscure Frenchman Maurice G. Dantec, Babylon A.D. does not have high expectations right from the start. Its own director Matthieu Kassovitz has aired his own misgivings about how his film has been “emasculated” by some at Twentieth Century Fox. And probably this could give us an inkling of why the plot is underdeveloped with loose ends unresolved and questions unanswered. The script is underwritten. The narrative, as well as action sequences, gets confusing at times. The story is set in the future but one does not know just how far out in the future. Some images of places and cities are post-apocalyptic especially those in Eastern Europe but some are highly stylized versions of the present like those of New York. Though uniformly grim and stark, some visuals show a measure of good production design. It seems some such visuals have survived the extensive editorial pruning, like the heavy duty cars being hoisted and transported over the landscape by helicopters and the portrayal of social decay amid the depressing sight of vast hopeless looking crowds milling around aimlessly in the chaos of devastated cities. Vin Diesel tries to adequately act out his role but he is bogged down by the deficiencies in the plot and script.
The word “Babylon” usually calls to mind a certain ancient civilization and culture that was characterized by decay and moral decadence, among other things. So the title of the film right away may suggest to the viewer a counterpart culture in our time. And indeed, the spectator has been prepared, so to speak, to expect what one finds in the film: excessive violence, foul language, moral disintegration following the destruction of cities by wars and whatever catastrophies (the film does not specify). This is a sci-fi action picture but there is an attempt to integrate religious sentiments into the story as found in the occasional showing of Christian icons and the insinuation of a virgin birth through Aurora and possibly the coming of the “messiah” whom a fanatical religious group wants to appropriate for itself. But these are clumsy attempts at trying to put some meaning and substance into this film where there is none and where good values are practically nil. There is also a hint of the manipulation or “designing” of the mind and person of Aurora by her pseudo scientist father resulting in unexpected bizarre results. The film shows that men cannot and should not tinker with the human person. Only God creates man.
