There are moments here that are spectacular, and there are many more that are spectacular failures.
Babylon A.D. (2008)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:96
Fresh:7
Rotten:89
Average Rating:3.2/10
Consensus: A poorly constructed, derivative sci-fi stinker with a weak script and poor action sequences.
Rated: PG-13 [See Full Rating] for intense sequences of violence and action, language and some sexuality.
Runtime: 1 hr 41 mins
Genre: Action/Adventure
Theatrical Release:Aug 29, 2008 Wide
Box Office: $22,489,779
Synopsis: In sci-fi thriller BABYLON A.D., Vin Diesel's Toorop is an antihero who quotes the best of cinema's bad boys from films such as THE GODFATHER and SCARFACE. But all the tattooed muscleman really... In sci-fi thriller BABYLON A.D., Vin Diesel's Toorop is an antihero who quotes the best of cinema's bad boys from films such as THE GODFATHER and SCARFACE. But all the tattooed muscleman really wants to do is leave poverty- and violence-ridden Russia and return to his family's home in upstate New York. However, he has been banned from his native America, so when a Russian mobster (a prosthetic-enhanced Gérard Depardieu) offers him a job and a forged passport that will take him back home, he agrees, even though the mission seems close to suicide. He takes a strangely gifted orphan named Aurora (Melanie Thierry) from a Mongolian convent to Harlem, his only help being a nun--though it is a nun played by action star Michelle Yeoh. Thugs attack them on every leg of their journey, following them as they take car, train, sub, and snowmobile to ensure Aurora's safety. BABYLON A.D works best when it's revealing facets of its futuristic world, from the refugee-camp look of Russia to the high-tech gloss of a 22-million-people-strong New York City. Production designers Sonja Klaus and Paul Cross, as well as director Mathieu Kassovitz (GOTHIKA), deserve praise for creating settings that evoke memories of dystopian films from BLADE RUNNER to CHILDREN OF MEN. Kassovitz, who is most familiar to audiences as the object of affection in AMELIE, also adapted the script from the Maurice G. Dantec novel BABYLON BABIES with Eric Besnard. The book weighed in at over 500 pages, so there are times when it feels like something is missing in BABYLON A.D. with its brief 90-minute run time. In small roles, Depardieu and French favorite Charlotte Rampling (who plays a mysterious religious leader) provide substance and gravitas. [More]
Starring: Vin Diesel, Michelle Yeoh, Melanie Thierry, Lambert Wilson
Starring: Vin Diesel, Michelle Yeoh, Melanie Thierry, Lambert Wilson, Mark Strong, Jerome Le Banner, Charlotte Rampling, Gérard Depardieu
Director: Mathieu Kassovitz
Director: Mathieu Kassovitz
Screenwriter: Mathieu Kassovitz, Eric Besnard
Producer: Ilan Goldman
Composer: Atli Orvarsson
Studio: 20th Century Fox
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Release:
Jan 6, 2009
Reviews for Babylon A.D.
Kakostimeni apopeira foytoyristikis klotsoperipeteias, me metaiores senariakes akrobasies, tsoyhteres eksarseis melodramatismoy, asygkratites aythairesies metafysikoy kai enohlitikes omoiotites me to Pempto Stoiheio (1997), poy dinoyn neo noima stin euro-
With bland protagonists and power figures unpleasant enough for us to want them out of our sight more than we want them defeated, it doesn't do much to hold our interest.
I unfortunately had a seat that faced the screen and I have two hours of my life that I will never get back.
This occasionally lavish, often clunky venture is consistently watchable if not terribly memorable or distinctive.
I call it (sneeringly, natch) the 'New Nihilism,' but, to be fair, it's really just the old, Franco-Prussian existential angst hole ratcheted up and dumbed down for our not so brave new world.
As if the gruff dialogue isnt bad enough, the action scenes are merely adequate.
Whatever happened to Mathieu Kassovitz, the French actor director whose amazing film La Haine made such an impact 13 years ago?
With his face like a squashed doughnut, and physique like the tyres of a huge truck, Diesel just doesn't inhabit the same planet as Rampling or even Kassovitz himself.
With a messy storyline and screenplay to boot, the film feels disjointed and lacking true punch.
If Kassovitz really believed he had a classic in the making, why didn't he take a stand and nix the casting of Diesel while he had the chance?
It's as though the film's final act was accidentally deleted on the digital editing console.
Mathieu Kassovitz is making a determined challenge for the stylish French sci-fi thriller crown of Luc Besson with this highly effective, highly charged action movie, even though he has had to rather mangle the novel on which it is based
It's unclear which is worse -- to so liberally steal from films like Children of Men and Minority Report, or to be so offensively dumb in the process.
Por piores que sejam os problemas presentes nos dois primeiros atos do filme, estes nem se comparam aos pavorosos 20 minutos finais, que parecem ter sido montados de qualquer maneira para concluir a narrativa rapidamente.
The fact that Aurora incarnates some extreme other possibility -- be it "light" or darkness, miraculous birth or genocide -- makes her one more "mother of the future."
Loses the few bits of intriguing groundwork it lays amidst a cacophony of mangled editing, lethargic performances, and an utterly unfocused and often contradictory narrative
Latest News for Babylon A.D.
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September 08, 2008:
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September 07, 2008:
Johannesburg Times: More murky travelogue and hi-tech apocalyptic tall tale than crystal ball thriller terror ride, Babylon AD and its own destiny appear lurching toward Babylon DVD, prophetically much sooner than later. ![]()
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September 03, 2008:
More murky travelogue and hi-tech apocalyptic tall tale than crystal ball thriller terror ride, Babylon AD and its own destiny appear lurching toward Babylon DVD, prophetically much sooner than later. ![]()
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