Review of Babylon A.D. (2008) by James C — 19 Nov 2012

When a veteran mercenary is asked to escort a young girl and her nun guardian to America, he soon discovers that she hides much more than he could imagine.

This is a dark type SF film that has subtle nods to lots of other similar movies - Blade Runner, Total Recall and Johnny Mnemonic to name a few. The cast play their roles well, and it is always good to see Vin Diesel and Michelle Yeoh acting, even though these roles do not really push them to any new heights. The special effects are well handled (though pedestrian) and there are enough fights and explosions to keep most people happy. But the views of future New York are a little too 'Blade Runner' for their own good. The story is quite well handled at the beginning and keeps you guessing as to what is going to happen next. But what really lets the movie down is the ending, as the story becomes more and more disjointed as things go along, and the finale explains nothing and is actually quite lame. All in all this is quite a fun movie, but it would have been a hell of a lot better if it had been a little more visually original and if it had a completely different climax.