While Vin Diesel's two-year silver-screen hiatus led many to believe that Hollywood was rid of him, he returns with a vengeance to star in "Babylon A.D." Surprisingly, Diesel's performance is not the biggest flaw in this film, which is based on the novel "Babylon Babies" by Maurice Georges Dantec. Instead, the inane plot and mediocre direction corrupt this movie far beyond anything Diesel could have ever single-handedly done.
To reiterate, this is a Vin Diesel film. That means if you've seen any other movie he was in, even his ten minutes in "Saving Private Ryan" (1998), then Diesel's straightforward, monotone performance will be expected. In a nutshell, every role that Diesel plays revolves around the idea of America's favorite bald ex-soldier, mercenary or thief who still has his morals, a personal code or a sordid past which ultimately places him on the good side. And he has lots of muscles. Each scene will either feature disorienting fights, explosions, a forced-looking sentimental moment, incomprehensible dialogue based on little to no plot and, of course, another explosion. But viewers who expect the movie to be any different, deserve to sit through it. At least things explode!
In the near future, the world has reached a terrifying state: diseases, refugees, global war, nukes, greedy corporations, terrorism, creepy religious cults and the breakdown of civilization. The movie mentions nearly every hot-button disaster for our future; they only missed global warming and a giant asteroid hurtling towards Earth. Diesel plays Toorop, a mercenary who has been through the ringer, a fact oh-so-subtly hinted at by his tattoos, scars and blatant lack of manners. He's hired to transport two people, the mysterious Aurora (played by Mélanie Thierry) and her caretaker, Sister Rebeka (Michelle Yeoh). Why? Toorop doesn't care; they're just "cargo" to him. The women are nuns though, so be prepared to laugh when they meet the rough-around-the-edges Toorop. The plot only gets worse from here, but, remember, there are explosions!
The underlying issue in "Babylon A.D." that causes the abortion of a plot is pure greed on the part of the studio executives. It seems that no one told the director, Mathieu Kassovitz, that a Vin Diesel movie is made to make money with a proven formula. He faults the studio, blaming them for the many problems and the lack of plot. Whatever his original intentions were, the outcome is the same. The full senselessness of the story is only fully realized at the end of the movie, when refunds are impossible and violence has numbed the viewer past the point of thinking.
Thinking probably shouldn't be a requirement because then the film's few strengths can be appreciated. A lot of the cinematography looks great. The war sets are beautifully bleak. The grime of many of their locations provides a nice comparison with the modern New York. The expansive nature shots are peaceful (before the explosions).
However, are were a couple of major problems with the violence, the main attraction for this movie. First, the fight scenes are over-edited. "Babylon A.D." uses quick-jump cuts to create jumbled scenes whose shots are all probably from the same fight, but there is no time to reorient oneself before another close up of someone's fist hitting flesh. The other major problem is that the CGI is not as impressive as a movie of this quality needs. It's likely that no amount of technology can make this movie better.
If this shell of a plot still seems intriguing, "The Transporter" (2002) is the better choice. It's pretty much the same basic plot, but with Jason Statham instead of Diesel, a more attractive female lead and French accents.
