Babylon A.D.

[ZackL]

This is quite possibly the worst movie I have seen this year. I had such high expectations for this because I read the book and I was blown away by how bad it was. Saying that the dialog is painful is an unbelievable understatement. The script is one of the worst to ever be recorded on film. Everytime Toorop (Vin Diesel) said something I wanted to kick him in the face.

Just my .2, i'd suggest you go see The Dark Knight again instead.

[Deadset]

Do you have any comparison's to how bad it is?

Is it blood rayne bad?

[ZackL]

It's Bloodrayne bad. It's DOOM bad.

[Archangel630]

Originally Posted by ZackL

This is quite possibly the worst movie I have seen this year. I had such high expectations for this because I read the book and I was blown away by how bad it was. Saying that the dialog is painful is an unbelievable understatement. The script is one of the worst to ever be recorded on film. Everytime Toorop (Vin Diesel) said something I wanted to kick him in the face.

Just my .2, i'd suggest you go see The Dark Knight again instead.

So it's your 20 cents? Aside from that thanks for announcing what most could assume would be a bad movie.

[masob98]

Thanks for the info. I wanted to go see it, but I will still give it a rent when it comes out on Blu.

[My_Two_Cents]

Originally Posted by Archangel630

So it's your 20 cents? Aside from that thanks for announcing what most could assume would be a bad movie.

1) It's 2 cents or $0.02

2) You chose to attack to OP as your 7th post to this forum?


Not starting out too well, are you?

To the OP: Thanks for the head's-up. I'll wait for some more reviews before I plop down the $$ to see this.

[GreenScar]

I remember reading an article a while back that Fox was forcing a cut down version of the film on the US while the Foreign release was going to be the director's intended edit. Now it looks like it goes deeper than this with Fox battling the director on whether or not he got to shoot important scenes. AMC recently talked to the director and he was pretty frank about his feelings towards Fox:

Mathieu Kassovitz is pissed off. The French auteur, who first made waves in 1995 with La Haine, is supposed to be celebrating the passion project he's been nursing for the past five years. Instead -- the week before Babylon A.D. hits theaters -- he is nursing a grudge. "I'm very unhappy with the film," he says. "I never had a chance to do one scene the way it was written or the way I wanted it to be. The script wasn't respected. Bad producers, bad partners, it was a terrible experience."

The film, starring Vin Diesel, is an adaptation of the French novel Babylon Babies by Maurice Georges Dantec. It tells the story of a mercenary (Diesel) in the year 2019 who is hired to transport a woman and her guardian from Eastern Europe to New York. "The scope of the original book was quite amazing," says Kassovitz. "The author was very much into geopolitics and how the world is going to evolve. He saw that as wars evolve, it won't be just about territories any more, but money-driven politics. As a director it's something that's very attractive to do."

Diesel emphasizes the movie's theme of smuggling people across national borders. "This whole thing that's happening in Georgia right now is so fresh that no one has even asked about it yet," he says. "We're coming into an age where borders are closing, and I think that our society will be numb to it because of our freedom in the virtual world, our freedom in the Internet."

But according to Kassovitz, Babylon A.D. fails to deliver any of these messages. "It's pure violence and stupidity," he admits. "The movie is supposed to teach us that the education of our children will mean the future of our planet. All the action scenes had a goal: They were supposed to be driven by either a metaphysical point of view or experience for the characters... instead parts of the movie are like a bad episode of 24."

So how did a premise steeped in real-world relevance fall so far off track?

The film's production was reportedly riddled with problems, from vast delays to budgetary concerns to weather setbacks. Kassovitz points to the studio, "Fox was sending lawyers who were only looking at all the commas and the dots," he says. "They made everything difficult from A to Z." The last stroke, Kassovitz says, was when Fox interfered with the editing of the film, paring it down to a confusing 93 minutes (original reports were that 70 minutes were cut from the film; Kassovitz says the number is closer to 15). Diesel too was astounded at the film's length. Having just completed production of the fourth installment of The Fast and the Furious, he had not seen a cut of the film in six months. "Am I even in the movie any more, or am I on the cutting room floor?" the actor joked. Fox could not be reached for comment on this story.

To be fair, Kassovitz doesn't entirely hate the film. "I like the energy of it and I got some scenes I'm happy with," he says. "But I know what I had -- I had something much better in my hands but I just wasn't allowed to work." That the movie follows on the heels of such strong summer scifi options, will also prove challenging. "Babylon will probably have a good first weekend, but the second weekend we're going to lose 30%," says Kassovitz. "I don't see how people who went through all these amazing blockbusters like The Dark Knight and Iron Man this summer will take it."

Diesel says that a director is always in the difficult position of being held accountable for a film's success or failure. "It's hard," he says. "Filmmaking is such a collaborative effort you can't look to one person." Where does Kassovitz look? "I should have chosen a studio that has guts," he says. "Fox was just trying to get a PG-13 movie. I'm ready to go to war against them, but I can't because they don't give a s--t."

[DetroitSportsFan]

I'll do my part and not see it.

[spolcyc]

Hasn't this movie been done like a hundred times before anyway

[DetroitSportsFan]

Originally Posted by Ricshoe

1) It's 2 cents or $0.2

2 cents is actually $0.02.

[ZackL]

0% on Rotten Tomatoes with 5 reviews =D. Very nice.

[JUDGEMENT 4400]

I am getting frightened by these stories First Punisher: Warzone, now Babylon A.D. where the director is cut off completely, and the studio cuts the movie down to accommodate length and a lowered rating to PG-13.

Hollywood, stop taking over, let these directors to their work so we can get modern masterpieces

(Not the Punisher Warzone or Babylon AD will be masterpieces)

[ThePhantomOak]

Originally Posted by jasonbird

I remember reading an article a while back that Fox was forcing a cut down version of the film on the US while the Foreign release was going to be the director's intended edit. Now it looks like it goes deeper than this with Fox battling the director on whether or not he got to shoot important scenes. AMC recently talked to the director and he was pretty frank about his feelings towards Fox:

Vin.

Diesel.



It is an action movie, NOTHING more. YOu put That guy in it and it becomes just a action movie staring Vinny. I dont feel bad for a director who was dumb enough to think he could make a good movie and have Diesel in it....

I knew I would be skipping it as soon as I saw he was in it. Mindless shlock.


If he wanted to make a real movie, he would have used real actors, not a guy who plays the same part in EVERY MOVIE, and likely would have been given a smaller budget and left alone.

[My_Two_Cents]

Originally Posted by DetroitSportsFan

2 cents is actually $0.02.

DOH!

Subconsciously was still on the 20 cent comment, I guess....

[fighthefutureofhd]

i'll go see it. i like vin diesel enough and this looks cool. there are very few movies that i have seen and disliked. it takes a lot for me not to like a film usually.

[My_Two_Cents]

Originally Posted by fighthefutureofhd

i'll go see it. i like vin diesel enough and this looks cool. there are very few movies that i have seen and disliked. it takes a lot for me not to like a film usually.

The Pacifier?

[Deadset]

The only Vin D movie I like is Pitch Black. I think that's because when I saw it he was relatively unknown to me...

Will pass...

[fighthefutureofhd]

Originally Posted by Ricshoe

The Pacifier?

the pacifier wasn't bad. i've seen a lot worse.

[ThePhantomOak]

Originally Posted by fighthefutureofhd

the pacifier wasn't bad. i've seen a lot worse.

Junior was worse maybe... I did not see either one, though

[Bluoholic]

Originally Posted by ThePhantomOak

Vin.

Diesel.



It is an action movie, NOTHING more. YOu put That guy in it and it becomes just a action movie staring Vinny. I dont feel bad for a director who was dumb enough to think he could make a good movie and have Diesel in it....

I knew I would be skipping it as soon as I saw he was in it. Mindless shlock.


If he wanted to make a real movie, he would have used real actors, not a guy who plays the same part in EVERY MOVIE, and likely would have been given a smaller budget and left alone.

Looking at your sig I can see that being ignorant is your second nature.