Babylon AD

The French actor-director Mathieu Kassovitz first stepped behind the camera in 1995 with La Haine, a stylish and powerful drama about police brutality in the high-rise ghettos of Paris. But his directing career has gone downhill ever since, and this botched sci-fi thriller will not help. Kassovitz actually disowned Babylon AD before release, blaming 20th Century Fox for making substantial cuts against his will. Wherever the fault lies, this dystopian future shock fable is a confused and clumsily acted mess. Vin Diesel, who becomes more like a 21st century Steven Seagal with each film, lumbers charmlessly through his starring role as a hard-bitten mercenary hired to smuggle a valuable package from a remote Mongolian convent to New York City. The delivery turns out to be a mysterious young beauty, played by Mélanie Thierry, accompanied by Michelle Yeoh's kung fu nun. Perhaps savage editing is to blame, but Babylon AD stops making sense around the midway point. Having survived numerous attacks, the trio foil a sinister cult led by Charlotte Rampling, leading to a climax of car chases and gun battles. The explanation for all this, involving artificial intelligence, is pure hokum. In fairness, Babylon AD is shot with great comic-book swagger and laced with potentially interesting political and philosophical ideas. But it ultimately sells itself short as a noisy, nonsensical chase thriller. Serious film fans should instead seek out a DVD of the thematically similar Children of Men, which tackled a similar plot with far more clarity, intelligence and bite.