By Graceland Geek

Babylon A.D.
Directed by Mathieu Kassovitz
Starring Vin Diesel, Michelle Yeoh, Melanie Thierry, Lambert Wilson, Gerard Depardieu
Rated PG-13
Release date: August 29, 2008

Earlier this week director Mathieu Kassovitz told AMC that he was very unhappy with Babylon A.D.. “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.”

Ultimately, Kassovitz is correct in everything he said but that didn’t make me hate the film, but nothing was enough for me to like it either. To me, the film seemed like someone tried to take Children of Men, Blade Runner, Minority Report, The Fifth Element , and Serenity and attempted to incorporate all the best elements into this post-apocalyptic tale, which ended up instead being nothing short of The Bodyguard or Waterworld, where you have a stoic male character protecting a younger female character. As the director himself put it, this film was simply a bunch of cut action scenes that blend together into a story that had absolutely no character development or story all.