DIRECTOR Mathieu Kassovitz took the aspirationally unusual step of publicly lashing his own film this week, saying that the released version of Babylon AD is not the one he wanted to make. But at what point did he suspect that his artistic vision was
going to be compromised? My feeling is that "we've got you Vin Diesel" should have been the first clue. Since he came to power with Pitch Black, Diesel has never quite shed his vibe as being the luckiest shopping mall security guard on earth, or a beefier, less considerate Jason Statham.
The cockier and more unstoppable Vin Diesel gets, the more it seems the movies want to restrict him. He may talk all day about how he does whatever he wants, but on screen he never seems to be his own boss. In xXx for instance, he's an agitprop maverick prankster until Samuel L Jackson forces him to work for Uncle Sam instead as a garden-variety action machine. Here, he's Toorop, who lives off the land, kills folk who make him anxious and answers to nobody for a good five minutes until a SWAT team drag him off to meet Babylon AD's Samuel L Jackson, played by Gerard Depardieu with an inexplicable rubber nose, and an even more rubbery Russian accent.
The offer Toorop can't refuse is a mission that conflates the action movie The Transporter with the artier aspirations of Children Of Men, escorting a young woman (Melanie Thierry) from Russia to New York. She is clearly a 'mule' but what is the mysterious mutant package she's carrying in her body? We barely have time to care before their travel plans inevitably go awry. The woman's protector Sister Rebekah (Michelle Yeoh) insists on adding herself to their excess baggage allowance, and they're joined by Toorop's old pal Finn (Mark Strong). They need all the help they can get against an enclave of cyborg separatists, plus a gory hodgepodge of religious cults and mafia groups, one of which is led by Charlotte Rampling with the pained dutifulness of a woman who once had to listen to Jean-Michel Jarre compositions all day.
"I'm not your friend, I'm not your brother, I'm not your boyfriend," Toorop declares to his attractive blonde parcel. Rest assured that he will be having unbrotherly thoughts about her within 90 minutes. Nobody looks to Vin Diesel for the libidinal, but everything is wrong with this relationship.
The tone of Babylon AD right from the opening voiceover is very much World Weary ("save the planet – what for?") mixed with A Bit Dull. Everyone, especially Vin, seems to have been told to keep a lid on their screen emotions, so that we end up with a gang of gritty heroes so impassive they make Clint Eastwood look like Alan Carr. Instead of being impressed by their fortitude, the overall effect is that the cast seems to need a good night's sleep.
Even the racing and fighting, which is what really matters in a picture like this, is clunky and truncated; a skidoo race leaves your struggling to work out who is where in the shouting and firing, and a set-piece car chase barely managed to get beyond first gear in terms of excitement.
Too placid for an action sci-fi, too turbulent for an intelligent meditation on anything, Babylon AD is not as bad as Mathieu Kassovitz thinks it is. But the director of The Crimson Rivers is certainly capable of better things than this.
General release from Friday
The full article contains 600 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
