Starring: Vin Diesel, Michelle Yeoh, Gérard Depardieu
Studio: 20th Century Fox (with 2nd digital copy disc) [Release date: Jan. 6, 09]
Video: 2.35:1 anamorphic/enhanced for 16:9, 1080p HD
Audio: English DTS-HD Master Audio, French DD 5.1, DD 2.0
Subtitles: Captioned, English, Spanish, French, Korean, Mandarin
Extras: Featurettes: “Babylon Babies,” “Arctic Escape,” “Fit for the Screen,” “Hummers in Flight,” Prequel to Babylon A.D.: “Genesis of Aurora” Digital Graphic Novel, Stills Gallery, D-Box programmed, more
Length: 101 minutes
Rating: **
Pretty bad I’m afraid. It’s raw all right. I skipped this one in the theaters after reading about its director panning it before it was even released, and so was sort of looking forward to at least giving the Blu-ray release a chance. First, I can’t imagine how this can be called an extended cut when one of the most expensive stunt-driving portions – described in the featurette “Hummers in Flight” – was completely edited out of the final film! They even paid for building and strengthening a bridge originally built only for railroad tracks to enable it to hold a bunch of racing Hummers for a few-seconds-long shot, plus blew up some of the Hummers.
The plot of the film is a total mess. The distopian sci-fi story seems to have been lifted by its self-impressed French author from the far superior recent movie Children of Men, with a bunch of other sci-fi borrowings. It has absolutely no connection with the masterful sci-fi television series Babylon Five. Even if it made more sense before its required cutting down by the studio, it still seems to be a succession of violent fights. Some are with firepower and some without – when Diesel and the two women he has been hired to safely escort from Russia to New York City must leave their weapons behind at a customs stop, their enemies conveniently seem to have no weapons either so they can shoot a lightning-speed, wired, gung fu scene. Diesel is, well, Diesel; his previous Pitch Black and Chronicles of Riddick were fun, but not this effort.
However, there are a few enjoyable aspects: Babylon A.D. is like those audiophile direct-disc and other vinyl projects of yore in which there was an inverse relationship between the technical quality and musical quality. Likewise, this Blu-ray sets standards for resolution, clarity, detail in the many very dark areas of the images, and a gangbuster soundtrack that uses all the surround channels to the max and assaults one’s ears with super-loud urban music, house-shaking subwoofer action, and explosions. (If you use the D-Box option with this film, they will probably have to peel you off the ceiling at the end of the feature.) One has to have the soundtrack at a high level in order to understand any of the very low-level dialog. Even doing so doesn’t ensure that the dialog you hear will make any sense. I was hoping some of the featurettes would explain the whole thing, but they really don’t – they just increase the frustration level.
Oh yes, positives…sorry. A few more: The stunt coordinator learned about this group of crazy snowmobilers (I guess you would call them that) and used them for a unique sequence in which the three travelers are sneaking into the U.S. across a border area between Russia and Alaska in which anything moving is destroyed by the authorities. Even slowing down to frame-by-frame didn’t clarify how one person on a sled on the ground could bring down two futuristic rocket-loaded fighter planes in the air. Then there are the two terrific primary villains of the film, played by would-you-believe Gerard Depardieu and Charlotte Rampling. I couldn’t believe that deconstructed, throughly ploughed-over face was Depardieu as a Russian baddie until I saw the end credits. Mon Dieu!
– John Sunier
