December 15, 2008
Movie Review: Babylon A.D.
Babylon A.D.
Released: August 2008
Director: Mathieu Kassovitz
Starring: Vin Diesel, Michelle Yeoh, Melanie Thierry
My Thoughts: What happened?
I saw the trailer for this movie earlier this year and was quite curious about it. Then I just recently noticed that it was released back in August, and I was like what happened? was it that bad? After reading a couple bad reviews, I had to see it for myself.
I must honestly say that the movie has a pretty decent story-line, a mercenary named Toorop (Diesel), gets an offer to deliver a package to America, where the package is actually a special girl, he accepts the offer with the intent of going there to live in peace once the package is delivered. So Toorop, the girl named Aurora (Thierry) and Sister Rebeka (Yeoh) of the church who protects Aurora, journey west across Russia to secretly cross on to the North American contenient. Through their journey, they come across many problems, which bring them closer together. Everything seems to work, until about the last 15 minutes, where everything just ends, things just happen to work out, you don’t know how or why, they just happen, and you get like a several 1-2 minute clips, and then you see the credits. I couldn’t believe it! I admit that other reviewers said the same thing, and I thought they were just being unfair, but its totally true.
Aside from the story the acting is average, Diesel gives a another strong American tuff-guy performance, Michelle Yoeh wasn’t bad, and Melanie Thierry as Aurora seemed just confused enough to seem like she was kept away from the world for all her life. As a character, Toorop was developed the most, however you don’t really learn much of Aurora, and as the focal point of the movie I think it was most important.
The directing was great, the futuristic America looks like a place we will live, in another 50 years, the lights, buildings and mass advertising in Manhattan looks like it was pulled from Hong Kong. The map Toorop uses in the trunk of the car when he first picks up Aurora looks like a combination of Google Earth and Microsoft Surface applied on electronic paper, so cool! Love the visuals. Sound is good as well.
Overall, this is good movie. If it wasn’t for the sudden end, and the story actually played out some more, this would have been a great movie, certainly on par with other Vin Diesel movies such as Pitch Black and Riddick. . I want to recommend people to watch it, because it is good, but I cannot, sadly it just falls short. I really hope their a director’s cut, I want to know more about Aurora.
November 25, 2008
My name is James Tiberius Kirk
As many of you may know, I am a Star Trek FREAK! Well more so to The Next Generation and Voyager, im partial to the Original, mainly because I like Captain Picard much more than Captain Kirk, and it is a little too retro for me, I have seen all the episodes though. I never really got into DS9, it always seemed kind of dark, and the station seems more like something the Klingons or Kardasians would have, too much steel. I probably will buy all the DS9 dvds one day, and have a marathon, but not anytime soon.
Anyway the new Star Trek XI trailer was released last week with the new Bond film, and I must say that it is awesome!!! The opening is amazing, with a young Kirk racing down a desert road being chased by some kind of robot i think, but in the distance you can see the silhouette of some incedibly huge buildings. The next scene shows an older Kirk standing infront of a shipyard, with the construction of a new ship underway (Enterprise?). The next two scenes show Spock, both the younger and older (Leonard Nimoy), with a brief shot of the younger Spock clearly attacking someone on the bridge of a ship, and showing rage. I really want to know what it is that makes Spock show his emotions, or what made him decide to surppress them, like a true Vulcan. There also seems to be some amazing space battle sequences, I can’t wait!!!
This was a great trailer, only 6 more months of waiting!
