We're soon approaching the three-year anniversary of covering Vin Diesel's eternally forthcoming future-set thriller, Babylon A.D. - on the 24th, baby! - and in perhaps an uncanny move to soothe our patience pains, IGN Movies has delivered the film's first domestic trailer.

The result comes across as The Transporter by way of Children of Men, if Jason Statham and Clive Owen were then replaced by Sir Diesel and some snowmobiles. Sure, it might turn out to be zippy late-summer fun, but moving one's release date from February to August doesn't exactly qualify as a vote of confidence in any respect.

Oh, and as for those rumors that only half of Babylon will make it to the States, CHUD picked up on some counter-rumors that suggest such is not the case. We may not know how legitimate this MySpace source of theirs is, but I struggle to believe that this thing could ever have run 160 minutes, only to lose almost half of that running time in select territories. In fact, I'm fairly certain that, to some medical professionals, behavior like that qualifies as an 'episode' of some sort.

Directed by Mathieu Kassovitz, Babylon A.D. opens on August 29th, opposite Disaster Movie and College, which are bound to be 'episodes' in their own right.

Is it just me, or does it seem like Vin Diesel can't catch a break when it comes to sci-fi movies? Twitch is reporting that Diesel's latest, Babylon A.D., has undergone a serious edit and the film has been reduced from a running time of 160 minutes to a mere 90. Just so we have this straight, it looks like Fox has cut the film pretty much in half. It had been reported that two distinct versions of the film (one for European audiences and one for the US) were going to hit theaters, but now we'll all be getting the same version since a 90-minute cut was submitted to the UK's BBFC for certification.

Babylon A.D. was directed by Mathieu Kassovitz, and it centers on a young woman who has been infected with a virus that could wipe out humanity. Diesel plays a mercenary who's been charged with escorting this walking time bomb from Russia to New York City. Joining Diesel is Michelle Yeoh as a butt-kicking nun and Mélanie Thierry as Aurora, the futuristic 'Typhoid Mary'. Originally the film was expected to be a dark action flick (what else could it be with Kassovitz at the helm?) but according to Twitch, the film is now aiming for a PG-13 rating.

See, stuff like this just bugs me. According to Twitch (via the Babylon A.D. production blog), two different versions of Vin Diesel's Babylon A.D. will be hitting theaters far apart from one another. It's not that I care so much about seeing a longer version of the film in theaters (which, apparently, is what will take place in the UK), it's just that Fox has once again decided to release a film in the UK first and then wait six months before putting it in theaters here in the states. You'll remember something similar happened with Danny Boyle's Sunshine earlier this year. The film was released in several cities around the world in March, but Fox decided to hold it back until December. Luckily, we're still not waiting for the film because Fox ultimately chose to stuff Sunshine into an already-packed summer line-up.

Anyway, UK folks will supposedly get to see a two hour and forty minute version of Babylon A.D. early next year when it's released across the pond. However, Fox has decided they will in no way ask people to sit through a three-hour Vin Diesel film in America, so they're going to trim that sucker down to a reasonable time and release it on August 29. In my opinion, this is a stupid move because by the time it's released in the states, copies of that sucker will be all over the internet, etc. I remember a good month after Sunshine was released in the UK, that film was all over the place -- one of my friends actually had it, and asked if I wanted a copy. I did not take it. I wanted to see the film in theaters. And I did.

Babylon A.D., a pet project for Diesel, follows a Veteran-turned-mercenary who's placed in charge of escorting a woman from Russia to China. What he doesn't know is that this woman is to host an organism that a cult wants to harvest in order to produce a new Messiah. The film was originally supposed to be released in the states on February 28, the same day as the UK, and I imagine they're taking the extra time to trim. Here's my question: Would you even be interested in a two hour and forty minute Vin Diesel sci-fi flick? And does watching the man for that long make a person stupider?

[via Slashfilm]