The buzz around Babylon A.D. is quite bad. Mathieu Kassovitz, it’s director, has disowned the film, because of the way the studio interfered with the way he edited it (cutting, I’ve heard, around 70 minutes of the film). Nonetheless, there was something to the trailer, some spark within it, that led me to think this movie could not be that bad. With Vin Diesel playing the lead, Toorop, one sort of knows what one is to expect; one shouldn’t think that this will be the next Children of Men, nor the next Blade Runner, but one could expect, through the trailer, that it would in part be a derivative combination of the two. And that is exactly what you get.
Seriously, the reviews of the film have been far too harsh, but I can understand where they are coming from. The biggest problem with the film is its ending, one which makes you wonder “what was that all about,” and leaves one with too many questions, questions one expects will never be answered with a sequel (hopefully, if a director’s cut comes out, many of these questions will be answered; and indeed, I think with a director’s cut, the way this film is treated will be changed, and it will be understood as a fair, but not great, film, on the level of The Fifth Element).
Toorop is hired by Gorsky (Gérard Depardieu) to escort a woman into America. Toorop, a mercenary who has been forbidden entry into the United States (he is identified by the government as a terrorist), is given a new identity, a new passport, which will get him across the border. The woman, Aurora, is an orphan living at a religious orphanage run by the Noelites, a new religious tradition trying to gain power in the world. She is loved by the nun who helped raise her, Sister Rebecca (Michelle Yeoh); and so when Toorop comes to take her to America, Rebecca makes it clear she is going with them. Toorop at first treats it as another mission, but slowly he begins to take an interest in Aurora; he notes that there is something unusual about her: she can predict events as they are about to happen, she can understand and empathize with people around her in ways people should not be able to, and she knows how to do things she had never been taught to do. When Aurora saves Toorop’s life as they are chased by drones in Canada, the bond which links them is complete, and Toorop’s destiny, unknown to him, is tied to Aurora and the Neolite plot around her. There is, to some degree, a kind of love between the two, but a love which was doomed because of complications which get revealed 2/3 of the way through the film.
Who exactly is Aurora? Why is she being chased around by people who claim to be working for her father (a father she never knew, and was said to be dead?) What exactly does the Neolite order want out of her – why is she believed to be a miracle which could be used to convert people to their faith? And why is she not interested in being a part of the plans made for her by the Neolites?
The answers to these questions slowly get revealed in the film; the way they were revealed is where the problems with the movie lie. When Toorop dies – literally dies – trying to save Aurora from the Neolites, that’s where the last third, and most confusing third, of the film begins. And it is the part which makes people come out of the movie disappointed. Having made a reasonable link between Toorop and Aurora, one wants something more for them than what little time they are given. Instead… we find out Aurora was pregnant with a special pair of twins; she dies while giving birth to them, and Toorop ends up becoming their father. Who these twins are, and what makes them so special, we only get a glimpse in the film, but, because we don’t get to know them, seeing Toorop taking care of them by himself at the end makes us wonder: were the sacrifices made throughout the film worth it?
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