Babylon A.D. (2008)

The next Battlefield Earth?

Veteran-turned-mercenary Toorop takes the high-risk job of escorting a woman from Russia to America. Little does he know that she is host to an organism that a cult wants to harvest in order to produce a genetically modified Messiah.


The film kicks off with a monologue of cliched proportions that is very unneeded, and that's pretty much the highpoint of the film, as it's only the opening, and it's possible that things could get better from here, but instead, they pretty much manage to go downhill. Did I spoil too much about my review? Well it was in vein of Diesel's monologue, but I digress.

Let's begin with the dialogue. It cannot help but to feel like a mix and match of dialogue that has been randomly taken from much better films, and by placing all of them together, you get dialogue which is in no way engaging, and leaves you with a mouth like a yawning hippo.

The FX is genuinely awful, it's like the director didn't even try to make them look at all good. The sets are nothing short of dull and just plain awful, and the look and style of the city just plainly rips off Los Angeles of 2019 from the far, far superior Blade Runner, which just leaves you wishing you were watching that film instead of this tripe.

The film is billed as an action film, but the action is so dull they pretty much make your heart flatline from the boredom. The performances are nothing short of awful. The film is awfully directed with clumsly as hell plotting, leaving the way to elephant shaped plot holes.

Oh yeah, Michelle Yeoh was in this. Yeah, she was forgettably bad
As for the characters, this is where the film goes from rolling downhill to lying face-down in a ditch filled with mud and thorns whilst a hobo dog humps your leg to completion. My apologies for that image, but it was necessary for you to understand my feelings for the characters in general. Vin Diesel plays the awfully named Toorop, who's meant to be that mercenary with a heart of gold archetype, but never reaches that goal, instead just being an utter ass with a stupid name. And it doesn't help how much time the film spends trying to develop the romance between the two leads.

But that's not even the worst character in the film. Oh no, that award goes to Aurora, played by French actress Mélanie Thierry. Aurora is the girl that Toorop is supposed too be protecting because she's "special", but you do not care one single bit for Aurora. She makes the most stupid character decisions, including one which pretty much ruins every single thing that the characters have worked towards prior to this decision. Granted, they pretty much give Deus Ex-Machina this decision later on, but the anger at the stupid decision she made still leaves a rage within you. But the worst thing about her is that she is a constant annoyance. As I said before, she makes stupid character decisions, but thats not all. She has some of the worst dialogue in this film, and a lot of her dialogue is pretty much shouting and screaming words, all leaving you wanting to have Toorop hit her in the face any single time she opened her mouth.

While it's not the worst film I have seen, Babylon A.D. has not one single redeeming feature, and is pretty much worthy of the rating I bequeath upon it.

Comments

Matt Stewart said…
Zero? wow this must really suck! I guess I need to see it now haha.
Anonymous said…
I didn't hate it that much, but I must say that I honestly can't remember a thing about it. I even had to check if I actually had seen it.
Matt Stewart said…
I will say one thing though, no matter how bad the movie is that poster is AWESOME
James Rodrigues said…
@Matt Stewart the posters okay, it just reminds me a bit too much of Blade Runner
Tom_Film_Master said…
This film looks so horrible I may just have to see it! Terrific review James.
Jeff SC said…
I can only think of like two movies that I'd give a 0 rating to, so I know this has to be terrible... That's what I've heard about it from everywhere, so I guess I should probably watch it. I like terrible movies, maybe I'll like it :P Nice review