Babylon A.D.
French filmmaker Mathieu Kassovitz might be familiar from his gritty, career-making Parisian ghetto drama "La Haine," or from acting gigs in "Amelie" and "Munich." It's the sort of artily populist resume that would reasonably give you hope for his new sci-fi foray, "Babylon A.D." - not as 2008's answer to "Alphaville," maybe, but at least as an action import on a par with Luc Besson. If only. When this Vin Diesel vehicle isn't pointlessly frenzied, it's narratively inert, wasting some decent production design, and a French-flavored cast primed for fun. Kassovitz also must have missed the Zagat entry about how Diesel is best ordered in light portions, and definitely on the side. (See "Pitch Black.")
Diesel plays Toorop, a glowering sometime-mercenary lying low in war-demolished, near-future Eastern Europe, living just to unwind at night with a glass of red wine and a plate of varmint sautee. Unsurprisingly, he's pulled back into the game, forcibly, by his old gangster boss, Gorsky (Gérard Depardieu, amusingly done up in a "Sopranos" track suit and pepperoni-toned foundation). The assignment: Escort young, seemingly clairvoyant Aurora (Mélanie Thierry, very obviously cast in the Milla Jovovich mold) from a convent in the Mongolian hinterlands to a mysterious medical consult in New York. Sister Rebeka (Michelle Yeoh) tags along to keep things on track, but the three are soon stumbling into every crazed mob scene and underground cage-match venue this side of Kazakhstan.
You'll be able to spot the bits that undoubtedly went over big in pitch meetings for "Babylon," which reportedly had its share of production problems. Group parkour acrobatics at one point are spliced with some of Yeoh's signature martial artistry. An Arctic pursuit sequence involving snowmobiles and flying fighter drones has one X Games-worthy stunt (or visual effect?), and does a passable job of aping Bond. But these moments are completely fleeting, and immediately followed by more of the same old storytelling grind.
Could Aurora be a viral bomb? Why are a new-religion heavy (Charlotte Rampling) and a mechanically tricked-out scientist (Lambert Wilson, "Flawless") surveilling her? Why does most of the world look like a refugee camp? Are we supposed to take Diesel's kicker workboots and hoodie for an iconic sci-fi look? By the time Kassovitz gets around to answering these questions, if ever, it's impossible to care much. For an action road trip, the movie leads to highway hypnosis.
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