Cinema review
Directed by Mathieu Kassovitz
Starring Vin Diesel, Mélanie Thierry, Michelle Yeoh, Gérard Depardieu, Charlotte Rampling
Release date 29 August 2008 (UK)

Tough mercenary Toorop (Diesel) is hired to escort a young woman named Aurora (Thierry) from Russia to New York. But it turns out there's something special about Aurora, and a sinister cult wants to get its paws on her too...

Mathieu Kassovitz's La Haine was one of the most unforgettable movies of the 1990s, but his next project, Gothika, was a widely ridiculed piece of horror hokum and unfortunately Babylon A.D. is equally risible. Possibly this is a result of the studio interference that the French director has complained of (indeed, he even went as far as to call the released version of the movie "pure violence and stupidity"). But maybe he just works better exploring smaller scale, focused projects than ambitious but bloated movie monstosities like this.

Babylon A.D. is, at least, certainly a movie with bold ideas, soaking up global warming, refugees, corruption and genetic engineering, and the action takes our heroes to more wide-ranging locations than your average James Bond adventure. But Kassovitz - and/or the studio - seems unsure whether it's a bleak post-apocalyptic sci-fi thriller or a pulpy action flick. The result is a mess, with a story that's almost as unfathomable as Southland Tales, dangling plot threads and one of the worst endings in recent memory.

In contrast to the utterly convincing youths of La Haine, everyone here is a staggeringly bland cliché, and unfortunately a charm-free Vin Diesel is unable to hold it all together. Sure, he's good at standard mercenary traits like growling and beating people up, but whenever he speaks (or, even worse, tries to display any vague hint of emotion), the result is laughable; there's none of the knowing wit and charm of classic grizzled tough guys from Humphrey Bogart to Bruce Willis. But then this is a movie in which even as great an actress as Charlotte Rampling turns in a performance of sheer ham, and it also manages to waste the considerable talents of Michelle Yeoh as some kind of kung-fu mystic and a virtually unrecognisable Gerard Depardieu as a mobster (complete with strange prosthetic nose).

Despite all this there are some good ideas here - a convincing depiction of a war-ravaged Eastern European country, refugees desperately running towards a submarine breaking through ice, the amusing image of Toorop inside a car that's being helicoptered across the sky. The action scenes also mostly deliver, especially one pounding chase/fight scene inside a massive rough 'n' ready bar (District 13's David Belle pops up to throw some cool parkour moves). But it's not enough to make up for the clunking, humourless script and dull characters. Hopefully Kassovitz's intended cut of the film will eventually materialse on DVD, and we can see just how different his version really is. Matt McAllister

VERDICT: 4/10
Some nice ideas float around this messy, mostly incoherent actioner.