babylon a.d.

Vin Diesel is an actor with talent. But much like Ben Kingsley, he possesses a knack for taking on terrible roles. Since appearing in The Pacifier, Diesel's films have become characterized as mediocre, but even by the Diesel standard, Babylon, A.D. severely underwhelms.

Adapted from a science fiction novel called Babylon Babies, the film is supposed to be a futuristic thriller focused on the dangers of genetic manipulation in a declining society. Mercenary Toorop (Diesel), is contracted by a Russian gangster to smuggle a mysterious and attractive young woman from Mongolia to the United States. Also along for the ride is the girl's karate-chopping guardian, Sister Rebeka (Michelle Yeoh).

On the treacherous journey, Diesel encounters many dangers including thugs with guns, thugs without guns, the arctic cold and his own character's unerring ability to lead the group into harm's way. It seems silly at first, but then one realizes Diesel has to have some excuse to fight throughout the movie. And aside from shameless product placements, that is the only real purpose of the film.

Diesel really isn't at fault for how terrible the movie is, but then who is? Common sense suggests the director, Mathieu Kassovitz. After all, it would seem that as the director, Kassovitz would have the opportunity to bring a coherent story to life instead of plastering a series of brawls onto a widescreen. Apparently that assumption would be mistaken.

According to an interview with SciFi Scanner, Kassovitz's vision for the movie-which he spent five years working on-was compromised by studio executives. This resulted in Kassovitz calling the movie "pure violence and stupidity."

The sunny side to all this is that those same studio bigwigs thankfully cut the film down to 93 minutes. That said, unless you are the type that gets a kick from bad movies, try to think of all the better things you could do with 93 minutes.