Babylon A.D.

I call it (sneeringly, natch) the 'New Nihilism,' but, to be fair, it's really just the old, Franco-Prussian existential angst hole ratcheted up and dumbed down for our not so brave new world.

Strap yourself in for some pure violence and stupidity.

Whatever happened to Mathieu Kassovitz, the French actor director whose amazing film La Haine made such an impact 13 years ago?

It's as though the film's final act was accidentally deleted on the digital editing console.

Even if it never finds an audience outside L.A., someone ought to write a book called When Dull Films Happen To Clever Production Designers.

An abysmal French thriller in which everyone -- Diesel included -- speaks as if they've learned their lines phonetically.

...as futuristic visions go, Babylon A.D. actually gets a lot right...

Defenders contest that Matthieu Kassovitz's director's cut is preferable. It certainly couldn't have a more incomprehensible ending. Silver lining? Vin Diesel remembered that movie where a sub cracks the ice and did it better a decade later.

There are some high ideas to be found buried beneath all the rubble, but they're so obscured by the banal, hyperactive action scenes that they don't really register.

Babylon A.D. is a plodding incoherent fiasco, though an oddly compelling one.