Babylon AD 12A

Verdict: B.AD ain't too BAD ***

LET’S start with the positives.

Babylon A.D., a sci-fi thriller that brings Vin Diesel back to what he does best—killing baddies while growling like a constipated wolf—is a seriously good-looking movie.

Rain-lashed neon cityscapes, dirt-caked Russki slum towns, endless Arctic snow-fields—all fantastically shot, just like a Japanese animation.

Problem is, the plot’s like a Japanese animation too—it makes absolutely no sense.

Vin plays Toorop, a lunk for hire who’s so darn tough, he shoots a bad guy stone dead, lights up a cancer stick and swears at a nun, all in the first reel.

He’s employed by a Russian mobster (Gerard Depardieu) to transport a “package” to Alaska then New York.

The package turns out to be pout-on-a-stick Aurora (Melanie Thierry, an emaciated skinny French bird who’s supposedly 27 but looks about half that).

And she’s off to the Big Apple because a cult wants to use her DNA to clone a Messiah.

Yes, it’s not your average blockbuster yarn by any stretch.

And while many will hate the story for being such a shambolic mess, I reckon it lends it a bit of off-beat charm.

Particularly the way Vin doesn’t have any idea what’s going on until well over halfway through. Vin, mate, you weren’t the only one.

Babylon A.D. ran massively over budget and schedule during filming. Clearly the studio has tightened the reins since then.

Because the end product is fragments of a very unconventional sci-fi film, jammed together into a very conventional shape, complete with unneeded/unwanted car chase at the end.

What’s obvious is there’s a bigger, crazier, much further-reaching film struggling to break out of the lean 90-minute running time.

Would it have been any good? Perhaps, perhaps not. And no doubt we’ll find out with the inevitable director’s-cut DVD.

But admittedly it is still that rarest of beasts: a Vin Diesel film which is actually half decent. So be thankful for that.

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