beccatoria (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
beccatoria) wrote2009-01-03 10:48 pm
beccatoria) wrote2009-01-03 10:48 pm
Film Review: Babylon AD (Oh dear god, FLEE people, FLEE)
Never, ever, ever watch this film. Or I don't know, maybe you should: it's fucking hilarious. Kind of. If you have seen this film, perhaps we can form a support group for survivors?
Yes, I should have known better. But hey, I liked The Chronicles of Riddick and critics panned that too. Although, the fact that there was neither Judi Dench nor Karl Urban in this film ought to have tipped me off.
In fairness, I didn't watch this movie thinking it would be in any way good. It's just sometimes, when in Korea with limited social options, the entertainment barrel gets scraped pretty thin and you figure, well, at least I can get a few laughs at the cheesy dialogue, and sue me, I kinda like Vin Diesel.
What I did not expect was the most ridiculous and narratively ludicrous story I've ever, ever seen. And I saw the episode of Xena where she gave birth to medieval Christianity by taking Lucifer on a picnic. I saw Love Story 2050.
The first two thirds of the film is a relatively boring yet inoffensive dystopian road trip with Angsty Mercenary Vin Diesel, Michelle Yeoh as a Nun and Random Actress as a girl with apparently creepy psychic powers who keeps flipping out at the angsty dystopian world and needs to be in America in six days (why six days we are never told, but this is like, so minor in the scheme of shit which makes no sense it's not actually worth mentioning.)
It's everything you'd expect from a "gritty" hollywood action flick, including women in fridges, inappropriate romances and gratuitous use of slow-mo, explosions and bad one liners.
But at least it's coherent in terms of its storyline and genre.
THEN THE GOOD BITS START.
I say the good bits because if I didn't find this shit hilarious I think my head would actually explode.
Perhaps I should cut to the chase and just give you the only bit of exposition we ever get to explain all the weird shit that goes down.
To paraphrase, the creepy mechanised doctor says, "20 years ago I was thrown off the medical advisory council for my work putting supercomputers in the brains of fetuses. The head of the Nolite religion approached me and asked me to make her a miracle child. As a fetus, Aurora (the random magical girl) played chess and learned to process information like a computer."
Which is like, hilarious in its own right. But extra extra special when you consider that this is also supposed to explain why said magical girl is pregnant with twins despite being a virgin, why this will somehow make the Nolite religion the dominant one on Earth, why she's psychic and can tell the future, and why she is IMPERVIOUS TO MISSILES.
Oh, no, wait, we get one more pertinent line of dialogue from Dr Chess Fetuses: "The babies are demonstrating an unprecedented will to survive."
Yup folks, if you have an unprecedented will to survive you can make other people IMPERVIOUS TO MISSILES. But only if you played chess as a fetus.
Vin Diesel then runs off to meet said Magical Girl because for some reason the tracking device in his neck is no longer of any concern to him. She has the twins and in a remarkable fit of Padme Amidala, dies for no reason, leaving Vin Diesel to bring them up on a farm and - I SHIT YOU NOT - end the film by telling them to come inside because THERE'S A STORM COMING.
PEOPLE. WHAT THE FUCK.
NO WAIT. THERE IS MORE. THE BOY JUST INFORMED ME THAT GERARD DEPARDIEU WAS IN THIS FILM AND THEY DUBBED HIM.
GERARD. WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED, MAN?
Yes, I should have known better. But hey, I liked The Chronicles of Riddick and critics panned that too. Although, the fact that there was neither Judi Dench nor Karl Urban in this film ought to have tipped me off.
In fairness, I didn't watch this movie thinking it would be in any way good. It's just sometimes, when in Korea with limited social options, the entertainment barrel gets scraped pretty thin and you figure, well, at least I can get a few laughs at the cheesy dialogue, and sue me, I kinda like Vin Diesel.
What I did not expect was the most ridiculous and narratively ludicrous story I've ever, ever seen. And I saw the episode of Xena where she gave birth to medieval Christianity by taking Lucifer on a picnic. I saw Love Story 2050.
The first two thirds of the film is a relatively boring yet inoffensive dystopian road trip with Angsty Mercenary Vin Diesel, Michelle Yeoh as a Nun and Random Actress as a girl with apparently creepy psychic powers who keeps flipping out at the angsty dystopian world and needs to be in America in six days (why six days we are never told, but this is like, so minor in the scheme of shit which makes no sense it's not actually worth mentioning.)
It's everything you'd expect from a "gritty" hollywood action flick, including women in fridges, inappropriate romances and gratuitous use of slow-mo, explosions and bad one liners.
But at least it's coherent in terms of its storyline and genre.
THEN THE GOOD BITS START.
I say the good bits because if I didn't find this shit hilarious I think my head would actually explode.
Perhaps I should cut to the chase and just give you the only bit of exposition we ever get to explain all the weird shit that goes down.
To paraphrase, the creepy mechanised doctor says, "20 years ago I was thrown off the medical advisory council for my work putting supercomputers in the brains of fetuses. The head of the Nolite religion approached me and asked me to make her a miracle child. As a fetus, Aurora (the random magical girl) played chess and learned to process information like a computer."
Which is like, hilarious in its own right. But extra extra special when you consider that this is also supposed to explain why said magical girl is pregnant with twins despite being a virgin, why this will somehow make the Nolite religion the dominant one on Earth, why she's psychic and can tell the future, and why she is IMPERVIOUS TO MISSILES.
Oh, no, wait, we get one more pertinent line of dialogue from Dr Chess Fetuses: "The babies are demonstrating an unprecedented will to survive."
Yup folks, if you have an unprecedented will to survive you can make other people IMPERVIOUS TO MISSILES. But only if you played chess as a fetus.
Vin Diesel then runs off to meet said Magical Girl because for some reason the tracking device in his neck is no longer of any concern to him. She has the twins and in a remarkable fit of Padme Amidala, dies for no reason, leaving Vin Diesel to bring them up on a farm and - I SHIT YOU NOT - end the film by telling them to come inside because THERE'S A STORM COMING.
PEOPLE. WHAT THE FUCK.
NO WAIT. THERE IS MORE. THE BOY JUST INFORMED ME THAT GERARD DEPARDIEU WAS IN THIS FILM AND THEY DUBBED HIM.
GERARD. WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED, MAN?
no subject
Okay, I have one question.
When he says "as a fetus," he realizes he means like, "in utero." Right? RIGHT? Because, unless I am profoundly mistaken about the mechanics of that shit, I do not think there is ROOM for a chess board in there. IDK.
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Or, you know, what
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Yeah, it was dire. But that's really interesting to know about the director. I feel really bad for the guy. :/
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I find that most movies suffer from a criminal lack of Judi Dench and Karl Urban. :)
Thanks for the warning. I would have rented this because the trailers looked interesting, but now I think I'll pass!
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OMG I KNOW. Pretty much any film could be improve by casting them as the leads. I mean really, if Judi Dench had been the bitter ex-mercenary trying to get the girl to America, I'M SURE IT WOULD SOMEHOW HAVE MADE MORE SENSE.
Also, ever since I saw The Chronicles of Riddick, I am incapable of watching Karl Urban without being reminded that "HE KEEPS WHAT HE KILLS." It proves very entertaining.
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That helps to explain what I saw in the trailer and could not believe was possible. O_o
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Seriously, magical babies made her vagina bulletproof.
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grenadesmissiles? Well now that's not fair.I noticed this quickly went to DVD and had no need to watch it. Thank you for taking that bullet for me to confirm.
I did like Chronicles, too. Actually, Simon and I loved Pitch Black. Chronicles, well, it was a good movie if Vin Diesel hadn't been in it.
no subject
Its so strange the amount of obscure sci fi novels/comics/RPGs/games getting adapted into films these days. Like for example was the world really crying out for a film of the Mutant Chronicles.