Babylon

Chaotic, decadent, and packed to the gills with movie-making madness, this is a love-or-hate viewing experience.

Attempts to out-Fellini Fellini are regrettable and for much of its length Babylon is an unsubtle and indigestible mess so that despite all the talent involved and the fascinating subject matter, it must be seen as something of a disaster.

Subtle it is not. Nor is it good.

Chazelle’s film commemorates the era’s hubris as it indulges in a bit of its own. This is how a world ends. Not with a whimper but a great deal of banging, baby. And vomiting. And snorting.

Babylon is a disaster of biblical proportions, precisely because it had so much potential.

Babylon is not so much a film of two halves, but a third of a brilliant movie and two hours of unmitigated mess and chaos.

Babylon is an adrenaline rush from start to finish, with said rush being raunchy, hilarious, powerful, confounding, just about anything you can imagine.

Babylon is a story about people who want to be stars, become stars, and are ultimately reduced to stardust.

Ultimately a condemnation of the Hollywood machine that crushes everyone with equitable cruelty and an ode to the innovative artistry and ineffable magic of the movies, whose siren call continues to lure audiences & filmmakers alike towards its warm glow.

Babylon isn't all bust, or even unwatchable, it is just overlong, overindulgent with nary a care...