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PUTNAM NEWS
Billy Summers: 'Babylon A.D.' not a sci-fi classic, but better than other movie options
While never a huge fan of futuristic action films, I still find myself going to watch them (especially, like this week, when all other movies are weak), hoping to come across the next "Blade Runner" or "Outland."
While "Babylon A.D." does not measure up to that level, it is a pretty good movie for those who lean toward something like a Fast and Furious: 2025. The hardcore fans of dystopian warfare will have plenty to complain about, but for the average movie goer, this is the 21st-Century equivalent of the Bad Boy with the heart of Gold doing a Good Thing amongst Bad People.
Based on French novelist Maurice G. Dantec's book, "Babylon Babies," this story had potential in the beginning. But...
The facts that Director Matheiu Kassovitz ("Gothika") disowned the movie before its opening and that Fox Studios did a bare minimum of promotion, pretty well doomed this movie from the start.
Fox cut away about a third of the original movie (which is why it feels like it is disconnected in certain scenes) to make it fit a time limit of just over 90 minutes, leaving the director outraged.
But, amid all the controversy, we still have a movie.
Vin Diesel stars as the very Vin Diesel-like Toorop, a hard man living a hard life in a very deplorable eastern Europe. After being banned as a terrorist from the United States, he is finally given an opportunity to return to America by smuggling a young female (Melanie Thierry) named Aurora from central Asia to the States.
Added baggage for this road trip is Sister Rebeka, a nun who is the young Aurora's protector. This part is played by martial arts actress Michelle Yeoh (also seen in the latest "Mummy" movie). This 46-year-old can kick more butt than Schwarzenegger and Stallone combined.
Toorop and Sister Rebeka encounter your usual bunch of feral meanies as they move through a corrupt world of decaying buildings, as well as societies, only to end up facing their two major antagonists.
One, a religious clique who wants to prove that their religion is the only true religion, and the other, Techno Guys who want to put an end to the "God, not Science" nonsense. Kind of a Jimmy Swaggart vs. Stephen Hawking thing.
The classic final battle scene is not as good as the warfare throughout the movie, and the ending (think "The Pacifier") may want to make you throw up, but it's still a lot better than the Bunny sorority mothers and disaster movie spoofs flickering on the other screens of the multiplex.
Billy Summers is a freelance photographer who also reviews films for the Putnam Herald. He can be reached at summers855@verizon.net.
