FILM REVIEW OF "BABYLON A.D." (2008)

“Babylon A.D.” (** out of ****) appears in two versions on its initial DVD release with different endings. First, the 90-minute American theatrical version is available on one side with the added vehicular chase and the hero with the Babylon babies , while the so-called “raw and uncut” version screened for French and German audiences is on the flip side without the Babylon babies. Everybody who has read anybody about this troubled sci-fi saga should know by now that Twentieth Century Fox–because the film ran over budget as well as over its shooting schedule–slashed it to pack in as many showings as possible. Not surprisingly, director Mathieu Kassovitz went public and disowned the film. We’ll probably never know the truth about this visually dazzling but loquacious road movie that boasts several interesting set-pieces. “Babylon A.D.” qualifies as a thoroughly average actioneer with rugged Vin Diesel enlivening things a little with help from Michelle Yeoh.. According to Kassovitz, Fox lopped off 70 minutes, which may account for the film’s abruptness. Altogether, “Babylon A.D.” amounts to the variation on director Sergio Martino’s post-apocalyptic thriller “After the Fall of New York,” about a futuristic warrior that escorts the last virgin in the world to New York to breed children. Imagine high tech “Frankenstein” taking place in a “Blade Runner” setting with a dash of “Strange Days” swirled in for flavor and you’ll have a semblance of an idea about this hokum that concerns a geneticist who has created a Virgin Mary to give a religious corporation a publicity boost.

Both versions of “Babylon A.D.” both open with our hero’s voice-over narration about saving the planet. The 90-minute version delves into Toorop’s background, while the European version is minimal with no reference to his personal code. We get a God’s eye view of planet Earth from outer space and zoom progressively into an overhead shot of our hero in a Gotham intersection discussing his death. Afterward, Kassovitz alters the chronology and sends us six days into the past before Toorop died.

Toorop (Vin Diesel of “xXx”) is a heavily tattooed, veteran mercenary hiding in New Serbia sometime in the future. Weary of war, he only wants to return to his family’s farm in upstate New York. Toorop is quite fearless, too. Early on he confronts an arms dealer who sold him a defective gun and gets his money back while groups of heavily armed people observe him. Later, Toorop has settled down to a meal that he has cooked in his shabby apartment when his instincts warn him. He ducks as an explosion detonates and armed gunmen rush into his apartment. The scene resembles Terry Gilliam’s “Brazil” where the police storm an apartment and arrest a husband while the wife watches in horror. Toorop discovers that the invasion team leader is an old nemesis who used to shoot babies in Sudan, Karl (stunt man Radek Bruna), who he promptly kills while a dozen or more laser sights illuminate his physique.

The invaders escort Toorop at gunpoint to an armored vehicle. He talks about a job with Gorsky (Gérard Depardieu of “Green Card”), a loathsome bottom feeding creep. Depardieu has been dubbed and the special effects people have slapped on a fat, pudgy nose. Neither Gorsky nor Toorop trust each other. Gorsky needs somebody to smuggle a girl into America. He pays Toorop a half-million dollars to take this teenager, Aurora (French actress Mélanie Thierry of “Chrysalis”), to America. Although the Americans have classified Toorop as a terrorist, Gorsky hands him a hypodermic device that will allow him to enter the States without fear of arrest.

Toorop leaves Gorsky and tries to light a cigarette. This is a running joke because Toorop cannot find anything with which to ignite his cigarette. A large helicopter with a four-door limo held to it by a huge magnet (think of the 007 movie “You Only Live Twice”) hovers overhead, and Toorop climbs in the back and it flies him away to the Noelite Convent in Mongolia. Toorop meets Sister Rebeka (Michelle Yeoh of “Tomorrow Never Dies”) and she stipulates three rules. First, she must accompany Aurora. Second, Aurora must avoid all contact with the real world. Third, Toorop must not use profanity. Toorop laughs off Rebeka’s demands but lets her join them. Our heroes reach a train station in Troitsk, Kazakhstan, at the Russian border, and ride the rails to the Bering Straits. They have two minutes to board a Russian submarine. To avoid satellite surveillance systems, the Russian submarine submerges with people still climbing aboard. Aurora tries to take command of the sub, but Toorop thwarts her efforts. Neither Sister Rebeka nor Toorop can figure out why the teenager can operate a 30-year old submarine. Rebeka reveals that Aurora spoke 19 different languages when she was two years old. Later, our heroes deploy on ski bikes and dodge missile-laden, machine gun equipped drones that try to pick them. Toorop is wounded and his pal Finn (Mark Strong) wants to let him die, kill Rebeka, and take Aurora. Toorop surprises Finn and kills him. “Don’t trust anybody,” Toorop quips. They arrive in Canada and then fly to New York where Toorop is supposed to hand Aurora over to the religious zealots Noelites.

“Gothika” director Mathieu Kassovitz and scenarists Eric Besnard and Joseph Simas have contrived an ordinary but visually exotic adventure that doesn’t deviate from the formula one iota. Ostensibly, this futuristic thriller was derived from Maurice Georges Dantec’s novel “Babylon Babies.” Indeed, the film bristles with violence, i.e., the usual small arms fire, fistfights, and explosions, but nothing really horrifying happens. Heads are not blown off bodies, limbs torn off, or anything like that. What can you make of a Vin Diesel actioneer when the hero skins and cooks an animal and then before digging into it pauses to pray.

In other words, “Babylon A.D.” is an offbeat tale set in a dystopian future. Again, there are several interesting set-pieces. The two-minute rush to board a Russian sub, the helicopter that lugs the car, etc. all looks cool, but any exposition or background has been jettisoned. We know precious little about the characters, for example, Toorop’s cynicism and the new world. Essentially, in cutting down the plot, Fox destroyed any continuity and “Babylon A.D.” makes little sense, even with its last minute revelations about a power hungry religious zealot.

FILM REVIEW OF "METROPOLIS" (1927)

As one of the earliest examples of cinematic science fiction and fantasy, "Destiny" director Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" (**** out of ****) ranks as an unparalleled achievement in its size, scope, and vision. Forty years would elapse before Stanley Kubrick's “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968) would rival Lang's epic spectacle about a troubled, dystopian society fractured along the fault lines of the economic inequality that isolated the haves and the have-nots. Nevertheless, nothing could ever be said to surpass "Metropolis" as a film of scale, special effects, and surrealism. According to Frank Miller at the Turner Classic Movies Website in his Overview Article about "Metropolis, "Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou were influenced by several writers: "They drew ideas from a variety of sources, including Karel Capek's play about a robot revolt, R.U.R.; the pioneering Soviet science fiction film "Aelita" (1924); and H.G. Wells' novels." Miller describes "Metropolis" as "the most influential science fiction film of all time." Miller may be going out on a limb to make sure an assertion, but the limb that he treads on his very sturdy. "Metropolis" deals with machines that allow its futuristic society to flourish and how those machines govern mankind's relationships. Nevertheless, moviegoers should keep in mind that "Metropolis" was not the first science fiction film. The definition of science fiction here is fiction of a speculative sort set in the future. French filmmaker Georges Méliès' short, 14-minute, black & white silent film "A Trip to the Moon" aka "Le voyage dans la lune" (1903) and the Soviet film "Aelita" (1924) preceded "Metropolis."

The preamble encapsulates the film's timeless, universal message: "It has a moral that grows on the pillar of understanding. The mediator between the brain and muscle must be the heart.” “Metropolis" inspired generations of filmmakers with its use of state-of-the-art visual effects that transformed the science fiction film. Thea von Harbou's saga about an evil robot designed by a vengeful inventor to impersonate a flesh & blood female Christ figure and incite anarchy can clearly be traced as a source of inspiration to many contemporary sci-fi films and television shows, such as the "Terminator" franchise, "Robocop" franchise, "Blade Runner," "Total Recall," "I, Robot," “Logan’s Run,” “The Fifth Element,” "Westworld," and Battlestar Galactic.” The "Metropolis" robot was not the first robot, but it was unmistakably the seminal one that sired a long line of cinematic robots. Robots appeared in films as early as Italian filmmaker André Deed's "The Mechanical Man" (1921)about a robot gone berserk, but only bits and pieces of the film have survived the ravages of time.

Meanwhile, according to Dominik Zunt at The Karel Čapek website, Čapek introduced the public to the word "robot" in his play R.U.R.("Rossum's Universal Robots")in 1920. Specifically, Čapek's drama took place in a factory that builds artificial people designated as 'robots.' Earlier examples of robots can be found in literature, especially the Greek and Roman myths. Indeed, robots are to sci-fi films what horses are to westerns. The famous science fiction author Isaac Asimov has written many novels and short stories about robots. The famous transformation scene where the robot turns into a human foreshadows the "Frankenstein" franchise.

Many detractors of Lang's visionary work—primarily noted sci-fi author H.G. Wells--derided it as shallow and Wells' criticisms are not without some justification. Indeed, the characters lack depth because they represent archetypes instead of individuals in this larger-than-life story set in the year 2000. The spectacle, this Marxist chronicle of humanity at odds with itself over machinery, and the anarchy that emerges from this division makes "Metropolis" a memorable mediation about our flawed society, part sci-fi, part horror and a statement about the incompatibility that comes about between those who control and those who are controlled. In this instance, those in control are the heads and those that carry out of the orders of those in control are the hands. Again, von Harbou’s theme re-echoes with greater intensity. The virtuous Maria would say that the head and the hands would need a mediator and the mediator would be the heart. You cannot understand and appreciate science fiction as a cinematic genre until you see that every sci-fi film owes a debt of gratitude to Lang's masterly work of genius. Actually, while Lang would make many great movies in a long career, the legendary Austrian director never made another sci-fi film that surpassed this milestone.

A malevolent robot, messianic crusaders, a patriarchal titan of industry, a vindicative mad scientist, and masses of mindless men and women enslaved by the patriarch constitute the array of characters in this milestone of German Expressionist cinema that embraces Art-Deco in his architectural designs. Scenarist Thea von Harbou and Fritz Lang assembled these protagonists and antagonists for the clash of the century with visuals that were designed to overwhelm 1920’s audiences by their sheer beauty and grandeur. In the annals of science fiction film, these special effects, involving the use of mirrors to supplement shots of live action, matte paintings for sprawling cityscapes, and miniatures of the city, were singular. All the planes, trains, and automobiles in the long shots were done either with wires pulling them along or shot-action photography. Reportedly, Lang got the idea for his cityscape from a trip to Manhattan, but there are too many undocumented stories about Lang and his inspiration so you’d have to read the biographies available about his life to sort out the fiction from the facto. One thing is certain Lang was more a film dictator than a director and he toiled endlessly and made his cast and collaborators toil to forge his vision. Lang drove his actors, actresses, and technical crew like a slave driver and often exhibited a sense of perfectionism that defied civility and common sense. He amounted to a cinematic Herod.

While “Metropolis” qualifies as sci-fi, the film also dabbles in the disaster film. The villainous father of the hero, Joh Fredersen (Alfred Abel), enlists the evil inventor, C.A. Rotwang (Rudolf Klein-Rogge), to create a robot look-alike of the virginal heroine, Maria, who preaches a gospel of sorts to unit the workers. Rotwang dresses in dark colors, has wind-blown hair, and wears a black glove on his right hand. Fredersen wants Rotwang to forge a robot that can assume the identity of Maria (Brigitte Helm), mislead the masses, and get them to destroy themselves. Joh has obtained secret plans about meetings among the workers in the catacombs and wants to thwart them. When they learn about the meeting, Rotwang escorts Joh down into the 2000 year old catacombs to witness Maria preaching her gospel of unification. During this scene, Joh spots his son Freder (Gustav Fröhlich) among the workers and watches as he embraces Maria.

Previously, Freder has been smitten by Maria since he saw her first early in the film. She entered the Club of Sons where Freder cavorted with various women. Freder was so stricken by Maria that he descended to the depths where the workers operated the machines and witnessed a meltdown. Joh is worried about his son’s dalliance with the workers because it threatens to destroy everything that he has worked for so many years. In fact, Joh fires his secretary Josaphat (Theodor Loos) because Josaphat didn’t inform him about the incident with the machines. Joh replaces Josaphat with the Thin Man (Franz Rasp) and orders him to keep him constantly abreast of his son’s whereabouts. Eventually, the false Maria does mislead the workers into destroying the Heart Machine and the loss of power leads to a flood that wipes out their homes. Grot, the foreman in charge of the machines, warns Joh, but he orders Grot to open the gates so that the workers can destroy the Heart Machine. The evil Maria leads the men and women workers alike to the machine hall, but she slips out a back exit while they destroy the machines. What the workers fail to realize is that the destruction of the Heart machine.

Meanwhile, Freder and the real Maria rescue the children below as the flood waters rise from an underground river that Joh had constructed. They use the air shafts to escape from the depth and take the children to the Club of the Sons above the earth. At the same time, Grot alerts the workers about the dangers of what they have done and how it will jeopardize their children. The furious workers now want to kill Maria. The evil Maria has gone to a nightclub where she is celebrating her triumphant masquerade over the workers. The nightclub revelers leave the club with Maria on their shoulders and go out into the night air. The virtuous Maria has gotten separated from Freder and the children and is now being pursued by the mob of angry workers. She runs into the revelers and wicked Maria and the mob grabs the evil Maria. They tie her to a stake and set fire to her. Rotwang captures the real Maria and takes her to the top of the cathedral. Freder spots Rotwang with Maria over his shoulder and sets off in rapid pursuit. They fight on the roof-top and Rotwang plunges to his death below. In the last scene, the virtuous Maria calls on Freder to serve as the mediator between his father and Grot, the worker’s representative, to work together.

“Metropolis” concerns one of Lang’s favorite themes—mob violence. Later, he explored this theme in “M” (1931) with Peter Lorre and “Fury” (1936) with Spencer Tracy. Although “Metropolis” has been available as a cheap, inexpensive public domain film for over 40 years, Kino Video has released a splendid restored version that true movie lovers will genuinely appreciate for its clarity of picture. Meanwhile, this is one hell of a silent German movie!

FILM REVIEW OF ''THE TERMINATOR'' (1984)

“Piranha 2: The Spawning” director James Cameron scored his first major cinematic hit with “The Terminator,” (*** out of ****) a gritty, on-the-run, rough-hewn, low-budget science fiction actioneer about time travel with a curious twist. Body builder Arnold Schwarzenegger of the “Conan” movies virtually guaranteed that this 107 minute exercise in murder and mayhem would be a blockbuster with his villainous, straight-faced portrayal of a relentless cyborg that will allow nothing to stand between its programmed objective of executing a woman, Sarah Connor, in the past. According to the Internet Movies Database, sci-fi writer Harlan Ellison took James Cameron to court over “The Terminator.” Ellison accused Cameron of plagiarizing two “Outer Limits” episodes that the former penned, specifically, "The Outer Limits: Soldier (#2.1)" (1964) and "The Outer Limits: Demon with a Glass Hand (#2.5)" (1964). Cameron has stated that these two episodes inspired him to make “The Terminator.” He may also have lifted the idea of "Skynet" from Ellison’s short story "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream." The producers reached an out of court settlement with Ellison and acknowledged the writer in the ends credits. Later, director Franklin Adreon’s “Cyborg 2087” (1966) with Michael Rennie featured a similar plot about a cyborg dispatched back to the past, but it had a different mission. The cyborg in “Cyborg 2087” sought to curb government abuse in the future by going back to the past where free thinking is coming under attack.

“The Terminator” opens in Los Angeles in 2029 A.D., at night while enemy Hunter Killer hovercraft prowl the post-apocalyptic rubble of the city for human prey. Heavy combat vehicles with massive treads on their wheels crush hundreds of human skulls into powder while human survivors exchange fire with skeletal metal terminators with fiery red eyes. A preamble of sorts comes up and sets the scene: The machines rose from the ashes of the nuclear fire. Their war to exterminate mankind had raged for decades, but the final battle would not be fought in the future. It would be fought here in our present . . . tonight. The actual story unfolds at 1:52 AM when a garbage truck driver watches crackling blue plasma-type waves envelope him and his vehicle.

A garbage truck operator is emptying trash bins when a plasma-like web of jagged blue lighting bolts envelopes his vehicle and shuts off the vehicle’s power. He flees when the T-101 Terminator assassin (Arnold Schwarzenegger) appears naked out of nowhere. Skynet has sent the T-101 from the future back to the year 1984 to kill the mother of resistance leader John Connor. The naked t-101 saunters up to a trio of punks at the Griffith Park Observatory overlooking Los Angeles. An obnoxious, blue-haired punk (Bill Paxton of “Aliens” and “Twister”) and his friend (veteran heavy Brian Thompson of “Sudden Impact” and “Cobra”) ridicule T-101. The Terminator kills both of them while the third strips off his clothing. Meanwhile, elsewhere in L.A., another naked man, Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn of “The Rock”) materializes from the future. He steals a homeless man’s pants, evades the L.A.P.D., and breaks into a clothing store, steals Nike sneakers and a trench coat. Whereas the T-101 wants to kill Sarah, Kyle wants to save her! Not surprisingly, young Sarah Connor doesn’t have a clue that anybody yearns to either murder her or save her life.

Sarah works at a fast-food restaurant. The T-101 finds three Sarah Connors in the L.A. phone book and kills the first two and then invades Sarah’s apartment and kills her roommate Ginger and Matt (Rick Rossovich of “Top Gun”) her boyfriend. Eventually, Sarah discovers what is happening and holes up at a night club called Tech Noir where the T-101 tracks her down. Kyle Reese rescues Sarah and they flee, but the L.A.P.D. capture them and Reese has to cough up his far-fetched story to a by pompous psychologist Dr. Peter Silberman (Earl Boen of “Alien Nation”) who doesn’t believe a syllable of Reese’s saga. Silberman diagnoses Reese as suffering from paranoid delusions and boasts that he make a career out of analyzing the guy’s stories. During Reese’s interrogation scene at police headquarters with Silberman, Cameron and co-writers Gale Ann Hurd and an uncredited William Wisher, Jr., provide audiences with crucial expository information about Skynet and the war with the cyborgs that seek to annihilate mankind.

The bulk of “The Terminator” concerns the T-101’s tireless efforts to kill Sarah while Reese struggles to lead her to safety. During their flight, Reese and Sarah become romantically involved and Reese gets Sarah pregnant with future resistance leader John Connor. Talk about twisted time travel?! Cameron intersperses a flashback to the future where a T-101 (Schwarzenegger’s pal Franco Columbu of “Beretta’s Island”) invades a resistance bunker and goes on a murderous rampage before he is eliminated. Throughout the blazing action sequences, Cameron gradually strips the T-101 down to its alloyed metal endoskeleton. Reese explains to Silberman that a Terminator is a cyborg, half-man, and half-machine that will never stop until it kills Sarah. Everybody at the police station regards Reese as a fruit cake with his unbelievable story until the T-101 shows up with an arsenal of weapons and shoots up the premises, killing at least 17 cops. Reese and Sarah escape, hid out in a motel where they build pipe bombs, but the resourceful T-101 finds Sarah’s mother, kills her off-screen, and imitates her so that it can learn Sarah’s whereabouts. Another ramped up chase ensues with the T-101 caught in a blazing 18-wheeler. The fire scorches its entire body in the last 15 minutes so that all that remains is the skeleton. Reese dies blowing the skeleton in two. The torso of the T-101 continues to stalk Sarah until she crushes it in a tool manufacturing factory so that only the hand and forearm, which appears in the sequel “Terminator 2: Judgment Day.”

James Cameron has more road trip action in this thriller than actual science fiction, but the action-packed scenes more than deliver their quota of thrills and chills. One of the earliest scenes in a pawnshop has the T-101 gathering an arsenal of hardware from an unsuspecting clerk (Dick Miller) and then killing him instead of paying for it. The “I’ll be back” scene at the police station massacre is probably the best scene in this supercharged little spine-tingler. The irony in the last scene is that Sarah Connor destroys the T-101 in a machine press.

The chief science fiction element in Cameron's film is the use of predestination paradox where it appears the history is being altered, when in fact, it is really being fulfilled. Cameron rehashed much of the "Terminator" action in the sequel, but he made the Schwarzenegger more sympathetic by having him serve as young John Connor's bodyguard. Ironically, again, this $6-million plus movie (remember the ABC cyborg series "The Six-Million Dollar Man?")wasn't that original because cyborg type characters have been around in fantasy literature as early as Edgar Allan Poe's writings. Nevertheless, "The Terminator" put cyborgs on the marquee more than "The Six-Million Dollar Man" ever did and eventually inspired the "Robocop" franchise.

FILM REVIEW OF ''MINORITY REPORT'' (2002)

You know that a science fiction film, like the new Steven Spielberg movie "Minority Report" starring Tom Cruise and Colin Farrell, is in trouble when the background elements are more interesting than the foreground elements. Based on a sci-fi short story by legendary author Philip K. Dick, whose writings have inspired Gary Felder's "Impostor" (2001), Ridley Scott's "Blade Runner" (1982), and Paul Verhoven's "Total Recall" (1990), "Minority Report" (** out of ****) tops the inept "Impostor" but lacks the exciting agility of either "Total Recall" or "Blade Runner." While the 'what if' premise of the Philip K. Dick short story and the script by Scott ("Get Shorty") Frank and newcomer Jon Cohen provokes thought, director Steven Spielberg bungles both premise and promise. Not only does Spielberg wear out his welcome with an exhaustive epic that runs a half-hour too long, but also he botches what could have been the equal of any of his action-packed "Raiders" trilogy or "The Lost World." Quite simply, "Minority Report" degenerates into a shallow, derivative sci-fi saga that bogs down too often in its own pseudo-technical gibberish and never delivers the hallowing hair-raising heroics that it promises.

"Minority Report" unfolds in Washington, D.C., in the year 2054. Over the past six years, nobody has murdered anybody, thanks to a pioneering crime-prevention program called 'Pre-Crime' that can predict a homicide before it happens. Inventors Lamar Burgess (Max Von Sydow of "The Exorcist") and Iris Hineman (Lois Smith of "The Pledge") devised this system that relies on three psychics (one woman and two men) called "Pre-Cogs" buoyed in a wading pool who have visions of future crimes. The Justice Department dispatches Danny Witwer (Colin Farrell of "American Outlaws") to check out the system before they adopt it for nation-wide use. Witwer suspects the system is flawed, no matter what Pre-Crime Chief John Anderton (Tom Cruise of "Vanilla Sky") claims to the contrary. Suddenly, Anderton finds himself in a predicament when the Pre-Cogs say he has murder on his mind. Anderton is supposed to kill somebody that he has never met in the next 36 hours. Predictably, Anderton runs. Not only does he resist arrest, but also he kidnaps one of the Pre-Cogs, former crack-baby Agatha (Samantha Morton), who insists that he would kill and run. Along the way, we learn Anderton lost his son; uses illegal drugs, and is divorced.

Spielberg blows it from the beginning with an action scene that wanders in circles. Things grow worse as the plot thickens, and we learn how the lottery style 'Pre-Crime System' works. At least ten continuity errors crop up, but what is worst is Spielberg never lets the action scenes off the leash. Instead, peripheral elements, such as the Magnetic Levitation traffic system that prevents traffic jams and the 'sick stick' that the cops use to incapacitate wrongdoers by making them instantly vomit, are more interesting than the contrived, drawn- out, convoluted story. Tom Cruise makes a convincingly vulnerable hero, but nothing about "Minority Report" is as convincing or insightful as his performance.