Babylon A.D.

In the darkly futuristic world of Babylon A.D, the rules are simple; kill or be killed.  Vin Diesel stars as Toorop, a ruthless mercenary hired to smuggle a mysterious young woman from the post-apocalyptic confines of Eastern Europe to the glittering megalopolis of New York City.

Hunted at every turn, Toorop spirits his charge acrossa nightmarish wasteland only to uncover a shocking secret that will bring the entire world to its knees.

Vin Diesel needs a big hit, his career started off well with everyone assuming he was going to be the next big thing but a few (more like several) wrong film choices have sent him down the slippery slope towards straight-to-DVD-action-movie hell.  He’s not quite there yet and I expect he was hoping this movie would lift him out of this slump.  Well, unfortunately for Diesel, even before the movie came out the Director, Mathieu Kassovitz was quoted as saying “It’s pure violence and stupidity … parts of the movie are like a bad episode of 24.” so things didn’t look good.

I can see what Kassovitz was aiming for with Babylon A.D; a bleak, dystopian, action film with some heart and a moral to it.  But unfortunately, after a huge amount of studio interference (according to Kassovitz), its turned into a run of the mill action movie which is more or less a dumber version of The Transporter set in the future.

The action is good with some great set pieces but these can’t hide the lack of a decent script and narrative.  You can’t polish a turd as they say.

Lets hope for Vin’s sake that the new Fast & Furious movie is good.

DVD Extras

-Digital Copy of the movie (for portable media players)

-Babylon Babies.  A featurette on the book the movie is based

-Arctic Escape (featurette)

-Fit for the Screen (featurette)

-Hummer in Flight (featurette)

-Prequel to Babylon A.D: Genesis of Aurora

-Deleted Scenes

-Gallery