If there was ever a case for Hollywood superstardom suicide then Vin Diesel would win hands down especially in this generation. Diesel burst on the big screen in 2000’s Pitch Black, a small budget science fiction movie that was pretty good and got Diesel in the limelight of Hollywood superstardom. This was followed by 2001’s The Fast and the Furious and 2002’s xXx both of which scored big at the box office and everyone was heralding Hollywood’s latest box office draw and superstar. Sadly after 8 odd years, Diesel has failed to live up to the initial promise he showed with Pitch Black and with the disaster that his latest Babylon A.D. is, it looks like Vin Diesel has truly managed Hollywood superstardom suicide, which is sad to say since I do like Mr. Diesel. What is really surprising is that Vin Diesel himself is responsible for the sorry state of affairs he finds himself in with his mad decisions to turn down sequels like 2 Fast 2 Furious and xXx: State of the Union both of which were hugely successful without the presence of Vin Diesel in them. Vin Diesel instead choose to star and act in such box office disasters like A Man Apart, The Chronicles of Riddick, The Pacifier, and the movie in question here Babylon A.D. It will certainly be sad to see Mr. Diesel go especially since I like him, but he really needs to make some wise career choices if he wants to survive and be successful in Hollywood.
Coming to the movie Babylon A.D., the movie just does not make any sense, is incoherent and illogical to the core, and to complicate and make matters worse is shot in near darkness most of the time, which is great for a movie like The Dark Knight, but only manages to make things even worse for Babylon A.D. Vin Diesel plays an ex soldier/freedom fighter/present day mercenary living in Europe in the near future which is shown as bleak and morose as planet Earth can get in any science fiction movie. He is contacted by his ex-boss Gérard Depardieu with a job to smuggle Mélanie Thierry to the United States from a monastery in the Russian/Mongolian border. Mélanie Thierry is escorted by another nun from the monastery Michelle Yeoh and before you can say whoa there the threesome find themselves in an underground disco/fight club where Vin Diesel ends up fighting inside a cage and saving Mélanie Thierry from some bad guys. Also thrown in are a fight sequence on snowmobiles a la xXx, and getting on board a Russian submarine to make their journey to the United States. Mélanie Thierry plays a sort of mystic/clairvoyant who is really dumb all the time in the movie and Vin Diesel is required to save her most of the time from her own stupidity rather than the bad guys who are out to get her. Once in New York the non-mystery is further deepened with Mélanie Thierry suspected of carrying a virus that will destroy all of humanity or then again is she pregnant with twins despite being a virgin and a mascot for Charlotte Rampling’s new age church who are all set to become the dominant religion with these twin virgin births. I had all but lost it by now, but still had to plod on to find the ending and save others by blogging about it. The movie ends with Michelle Yeoh getting killed, Mélanie Thierry giving birth to twins, a white girl child and a black girl child and passing away, and in the final shot we have Vin Diesel caring for these twins. By now Babylon A.D. had crossed all limits of absurdity and I was past caring. Absolutely rotten stuff to the core, just stay away from it, not even worth the admission price of a ticket. The one good thing about Babylon A.D. is that it’s over in 98 min and the torture is not prolonged to the 2 hour mark thankfully.
This looks like a good movie. Will definitely hit the blockbuster of the movie in cinemas. Thanks for the review.
Wei Liang
Hi Wei,
I like Vin Diesel and a lot too, but I did not really like the movie. Guess it is not my kind of cup of tea. BTW you have a good blog going on, I liked the theme. Mind sharing the theme name…