Sunday, August 31, 2008

The problem with Babylon A.D.

It was at this point that Vin Diesel realized he left the iron and the coffeemaker on back at his house.
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Babylon A.D. isn’t exactly receiving positive praise…not even from its own director.

Director Mathieu Kassovitz isn’t trying to put a positive spin on his movie. He’s letting his true feelings about the movie be known to the world. He hates the freaking film.

Read below from the link above

(("I'm very unhappy with the film," he says. "I never had a chance to do one scene the way it was written or the way I wanted it to be. The script wasn't respected. Bad producers, bad partners, it was a terrible experience."))

He places most of the blame on Fox. Even before his comments, bloggers have stated that the movie was in trouble. Fox wanted a shorter family-friendly movie. Fox and another studio have two completely different cuts of the film. It all depends on which country and studio releases it.

((It's pure violence and stupidity," he admits. "The movie is supposed to teach us that the education of our children will mean the future of our planet. All the action scenes had a goal: They were supposed to be driven by either a metaphysical point of view or experience for the characters... instead parts of the movie are like a bad episode of 24."))

Wow, that 24 comment was a low blow, but I like it. It’s refreshing to hear a director speak his mind.

It should be noted that the original release date was February 29, 2008. The movie would have been better suited for that February release date.

It should also be known that the movie has too many similarities to Children of Men.

Taken from the Wiki page on Babylon

((In the near future, Toorop (Vin Diesel) is a mercenary who takes the job of escorting a woman named Aurora from Central Asia to New York. While he thinks this is just an ordinary mission, he gradually finds out that his guest is carrying twins that have the potential to become the next Messiahs — and everybody wants to get their hands on them.))

And Children of Men (Imdb.com)

((Set in 2027, when no child has been born for 18 years and science is at loss to explain the reason, African and East European societies collapse and their dwindling populations migrate to England and other wealthy nations. In a climate of nationalistic violence, a London peace activist turned bureaucrat Theo Faron, joins forces with his revolutionary ex-wife Julian in order to save mankind by protecting a woman who has mysteriously became pregnant))

So, we’ve already seen this movie before.

I will see this on DVD though. I hope there is a director’s cut, but given the bad relationship between the director and the studio, that seems unlikely.

3 comments:

MC said...

Babylon A.D. is based on a 1999 French novel called Babylon Babies.

Children of Men is based on a 1992 P.D. James novel of the same name.

Perhaps the influence is in the source material.

Semaj said...

I can see that too.

I should have put that in the post, because looking at the message boards, the movie is getting a lot of flack for being a lot like Children of Men, probably a little unfairly.

Semaj said...

I have to say some of the TV spots, the few there were, were okay and they tried to make it seem like a modern day bladerunner.

But something tells me even Fox knew the movie was going to fail, with the limited marketing.

 
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