John's Movie Musings

On the whole, I like Vin Diesel movies. Sure, they're not great, but he portrays this sort of masculinity that's not been seen since Chuck Norris. The kind that makes you stand in the theater and yell, "That's testosterone, bitches!!!" Try it when you go see his next one. Don't worry about feeling embarrassed. It's a Vin Diesel movie, the place will be empty.

And that highlights Vin's problem. He's great at picking movies with interesting worlds and backdrops, but the plotlines lack focus. Just take a look at the Riddick movies for an example.

So does Babylon A.D. break the trend? Sadly, no. In many ways, it's worse.

For the first two-thirds, the movie's not bad. It's a simple story of "get the girl to New York" but it's got a Cyberpunk feel to keep things interesting. Sure, it's ripped off of Blade Runner, but if you're gonna rip something off, might as well be the best, right?

But here's where the (plagairized) world building falls apart. Vin meets several characters along the journey that he seems to have a connection with. I expected all that to be revealed over the course of the movie, culminating to a satisfactory ending. Afterall, that's how stories work. Instead, we get a completely new plot in the last act. Seriously, there comes a point towards the last half hour where everything after it has no connection to what came before. It's bad. I'm talking Hancock bad. My friend and I sat through the credits trying to figure out what the writer/director were going for. I think we got it figured out, but man did they screw it up.

So yeah, skip this.


Grade: D