It is the not-too-distant future. Thousands of satellites scan, observe and monitor our every move. Much of the planet is a war zone; the rest, a collection of wretched way stations, teeming megalopolises, and vast wastelands punctuated by areas left radioactive from nuclear meltdowns. It is a world made for hardened warriors, one of whom, a mercenary known only as Toorop, lives by a simple survivor's code: kill or be killed. His latest assignment has him smuggling a young woman named Aurora from a convent in Kazakhstan to New York City. Toorop, his new young charge Aurora and Aurora's guardian Sister Rebeka embark on a 6,000-mile journey that takes them from Eastern Europe, through a refugee camp in "New Russia," across the Bering Straight in a pilfered submarine, then through the frozen tundra of Alaska and Canada, and finally to New York. Facing obstacles at every turn, Toorop, the killer for hire, is tested like never before, in ways he could never have imagined--as he comes to understand that he is the custodian of the only hope for the future of mankind. For the first time in his life, Toorop has to make a choice: to make a difference or walk away and save himself. Too bad it came on the day he died.
The trailer for Babylon A.D. certainly had all the bells and whistles. Exciting background music, explosions, guns, general bad-ass-ery and even a snow mobile doing an ariel stunt. All its superficial bravado however does not save it from the lack of story or Vin Diesel’s acting prowess.
There were some decent fight scenes in the film and they are fun for you action fans out there. Overall however, I just found it lacking. Vin seems to work well in very specific settings. Under no circumstances should he ever speak. Ever. The moment he speaks it just seems fake and forced and awful. He rarely delivers a line that I believe or care about. This is exactly why Riddick was a good film for him. Even if I did get him, there is still this weird story line with even weirder villains. I don’t care how bad you want to make someone appear, you don’t ever have your villains wearing sunglasses at night. And this film had loads of them. It was like the entire Russian mafia was wearing Dolce sunglasses at 2am. It was just so silly.
The story wanted to be deep but really ended up being under explained. I just never found it particularly well explained at the end of the film or even interesting. It wanted to be 5th Element but ended up being a bit shallow.
It had a few moments but missed the mark in the grand scheme of things.
