MelanieThierry Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Just going by the poster and the trailer, you could probably recognize Babylon A.D. as a bloated big-budget science fiction film. But after viewing the film, and with a few facts to put the film in context -- like the fact 20th Century Fox didn't screen Babylon A.D. for critics, like the fact director Mathieu Kassovitz has already disavowed the film, like the numb dumb clang of every line of dialogue in it -- you realize that Babylon A.D. is a bad, bloated big-budget science fiction film that doesn't even have the distinction of being memorably horrible or bravely idiotic or fascinatingly inept; it's simply an inert mass, a lump of product, a failure too expensive to simply discard.

In a near-future Europe (we're never told the year, but when someone mentions the last Siberian tiger died in 2017, it's implied that was a while ago), a mercenary named Toorop (Vin Diesel) is hired to escort a young woman and her guardian from a monastery in Mongolia to New York. The young woman, Aurora (Mélanie Thierry) has never left the convent; her watchful protector, Sister Rebeka (Michelle Yeoh), cautions Toorop that Aurora is to be shielded from the world. Toorop's taken the job for the payoff -- he's been promised a wad of cash and, more importantly, a new passport that'll get him off the terrorist watchlist that's exiled him from America -- but as Toorop, Rebekah and Aurora travel through the ruined places of tomorrow, they begin to bond. ...

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.