i liked this movie but it could have been so much better. I dont know why so many people hated it so much. It wasnt anyw
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Azero18 — 17 years ago(October 10, 2008 02:55 AM)
Nice interpretation of the movie, you bring about some good explanations. However, with 1.5 hours of missing footage from the movie i suppose no one will truly understand the movie the way the director wanted them too. Unless and extended, or uncut version is released on DVD.
"We all need mirrors to remind ourselves who we are." -
yakuza_gunner — 17 years ago(October 12, 2008 08:58 PM)
Indeed, and even if the movie's various symbols and background was easy to grasp, the plot itself jumped and skipped ahead way too fast at times & vice versa. Like for example the scene where the troupe is moving across the plains on the snow mobiles. I went to the washroom for a couple of minutes during that scene, and when I came back the tense relations between the three had changed to one of happiness and friendship
I seriously thought I missed some kind of bonding scene in between, because a couple of scenes ago everybody looked like they were gonna kill each other. -
toph1980 — 17 years ago(October 13, 2008 05:30 PM)
Forget any DC, this movie is crap. No, it has nothing to do with Diesel, I actually think he's a decent actor.
I don't care how badly Fox wrecked Babylon AD (BAD), Mathieu Kassovitz's version can't possibly be any better. As far as I know, most of what we saw was Kassovitz's vision. His shots, style, themes, etc. And it all sucked. Average stuff tops.
Keaton is Batman. Jack is The Joker. Period. -
no1sbusiness — 17 years ago(October 14, 2008 06:33 AM)
OP: That's a pretty good summary of the movie, however my issue was not that I didn't understand it, it is that is was just poorly executed and edited. I realise there were issues with the studio stepping in, but this movie was just a mess.
There were massive continuity issues, both in terms of the story and the character development, things were not explained properly, arcs were not finished, action happened for no apparent reason, dialogue added nothing and the ending was bland.
I was shocked to find that when I got out of the cinema, only 90 minutes had passed. It honestly felt like at least 2 hours and that is not a good thing . . . -
headnspace — 17 years ago(October 19, 2008 07:55 PM)
Okay, several posters said that the BABIES saved Aurora when the missile exploded near her face.
HOW do you know this? I do not recall this in the movie at all.
I thought it was Aurora controlling the explosion to save/hide herself.
Can anyone tell me where I missed this in the movie? (or did someone read the story and get it there?) -
william-e-nelson — 17 years ago(November 28, 2008 10:36 AM)
alright, who was gorski getting her out of the monastery for? not for her father, and not for the high priestess. that is one main plot hole. I buy the pill thing for the births, but some posters are saying toorop is the father of one,so during the 11 minutes that were cut, they did the deed?
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Gaimcap — 17 years ago(December 01, 2008 03:51 AM)
Yes. They did the deed. They did it so hard and so fast that it took her less than 6 days to get pregnant and for it to mature up to be able to be birthed at the same time as the other one (since 6 days is apparently how long it took them to get from wherever in Russia to New York).
Edit: Oh and it was for the High Priestess She's the one who hired Groskey to kill the husband, steal the baby (Aurora), and then put her there in the first place. By putting her in an ALL WOMENS monastery they could further accentuate that she was a virgin mother. She then called on him to retrieve Aurora and he in turn hired Turop. Once everything went bad she then decided to kill him.
The true plothole is how they knew how to impregnate her or why they decided to even do it. Their original plan was to create super babies for smarter members (or so the father/doctor said), which has nothing to do with Jesus messiah babies and impregnating pills
Stuff I'd like explicated:
1.) Why the heck do the babies have super powers?
Don't say it's because she's a virgin who bore children thereby making them Messiah's or whatever By that logic any virgin could get In-Vitro Fertilization and have Jesus babies (If that's incorrect then you could still create Jesus babies at will by just repeating Aurora).
2.) Why did Aurora die? Pretty sure Mary lived past the birthing of Jesus Just 'cause? I can kind of accept that but still.
3.) Why are the babies different races? Another just 'cause?
4.) A storm is coming
5.) The fathers tracking ability Though TBH I'm willing to write this one off as movie magic like the outrunning of missiles scene.
I can actually make do without knowing 2-5 But #1. Without that I really do think this movie is a piece of trash. Open ended movies are fine. It's ok when they leave it to the audience to fill in the blanks but not when they rely on Dues Ex Machina so heavily at the climax and then abruptly end it
It's like having watching the first 2 movies of Lord of the Rings and then in the third movie Frodo suddenly gains the ability to TELEPORT, so he just pops into Mount Doom, drops the ring into the lava, and then the credits roll. -
derryjordan — 17 years ago(December 06, 2008 09:30 PM)
Super powers aint the problem - the babies are born of a mother who has been designed by humans - we pretty much have to say "She aint natural and stuff so her babies might be even more unnatural". The problem is of course the ending of the movie which is clearly a product of some sort of studio-rape, which has left an absolutely awful taste in the mouth, instead of the normal, satisfying dnouement that should have concluded the film.
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nosferatus-teppes — 17 years ago(December 07, 2008 01:21 PM)
Seriously you don't see how any of those things could have happened? Besides #4. That's your only good question.
I hated this movie just to be clear, I'm not a rabid fan. I don't plan on reading the book ever, much better things to occupy my time.
If you want some half-assed guesses to your questions though here.- Aurora wasn't designed to be that special(powers), they impregnated her with super babies. Genetical engineering to give them these abilities. (See every fictional female character in a sci-fi/fantasy show that gets pregnant.)
I swear this has to be a female fantasy to have babies in the womb using magic/powers outside on things hurting the mom. I'm starting to get sick of it. - She was designed by a man, so obviously she must have been designed to die after giving birth. Not that uncommon naturally either.
- Babies were put into her, I'm going to assume they fertilized eggs and put those into her so they're not even really Aurora's children technically.
- Nothing to say on this one.
- I assume you mean the father's camera's everywhere thing. Well maybe you didn't notice the men constantly surrounding Vin Diesel and friends out in public. I'm going to say his lackeys have a camera link-up to him.
Now that aside, this was a generic piece of beep movie with terrible acting and lines.
- Aurora wasn't designed to be that special(powers), they impregnated her with super babies. Genetical engineering to give them these abilities. (See every fictional female character in a sci-fi/fantasy show that gets pregnant.)
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Larrymon2000 — 17 years ago(December 08, 2008 08:49 PM)
This movie tried to blend a mystical, ethereal feel with the children and the miracle birth and Aurora's apparent sixth sense with futuristic science and technology. It does neither of them well. It's hard to defend this movie.
Saying that it does what it does to let the audience interpret it is a cop-out. If they had a bigger budget and a less restrictive distributor/producer, the director would have made it longer, with more details, and not ugly parachronisms everywhere. I mean come on, they have the technology to implant artificial intelligence software programs into human brains and develop neural networks to learn at exponential rates but the baddies still drive Range Rovers and use M4s? You're kidding, right?
Like the previous poster said: There's a distinction between leaving mystery to the viewer and presenting the viewer with a bag of nothing. This movie presents us with a bag of nothing. No matter how much you try to pseudo-intellectually "interpret" this movie, there are still glaring holes. Explain, using logic and reasoning, how, in a technologically-driven world with no reference to the supernatural, the children of Aurora could produce some kind of field to stop the missile's explosion. Incredible magnetic field of some sort? Come on. If the scientists had the power to manipulate and produce that, who the hell needs a manufactured religion. I'd just clone an army of super-soldiers that could manipulate fields around them. Everything was just silly. Completely silly.
Plain and simple, it was an unfinished product. It doesn't deserve higher than the rating it has here.
Guy 1: Oh My God, I found a penny!
Guy 2: You B@stard! -
empathy44 — 17 years ago(December 20, 2008 02:32 PM)
It's been awhile now, but
I will definitely concede that it ended suddenly and too abruptlysomeone said they loved the first 80% of the movie and I agree. However, I kept reading rants by people who had seemed to miss the answers and so assumed they weren't there. They are there, they are just embedded in context.
People seemed to want to hate it. I didn't expect much, maybe that's why I was surprised by how good it was. It seemed to me a lot like a sci fi story rather than what passes as sci fi in the movies these days (ooooo, look at the pretty, pretty BOOOOM!). I likes me the pretty violence, but I like other kinds of movies as well.
I liked that they let you absorb the world in order to get your questions answeredThey didn't have characters spell everything out for you. They never spoke about the nuclear war that had obviously happened, but you got to see them putting up shields on the train to go over a rather large crater. They didn't state in capital letters that there had been biological warfare but his two faced buddy had seen it's effects on people. They didn't say "we created a person who will react to an engineered virus by becoming pregnant." but the previous conversations about the virus and the timing of the girls problems alluded to it.
Diesel's character lived in a horrible nightmare world that he was surviving in through skill, knowledge and luck. It was a bad place. This provided the motivation for him to accept the job and to be drawn through the story arc in order to get away from that world to America. It was obvious there would be a catchthey were going to try to screw him some how. Diesel's character didn't say out loud "I'm d***** if I do and d***** if I don't, so I might as well try, he had a long silent think and a resigned head drop. Subtle stuff, not empty stuff.
I wonder if the mother would have died in the original director's version? I agree having the twins protect her against firestorms and then allow her to die was a plot hole. Aurora was expendable to the powers that be, no mom meant they could raise and brainwash the kids by having total control. Again, this was to show that they were eeeeeeeeeeeevil.
I wish the director had been allowed to complete it. I think he's a ******* genius. He needed a wing-man to help him stay on budget.
I like that Diesel's character is more than a one dimensional wise cracking superman. That he grows during the course of the movie. I would have liked to see more of that arc. He laughs at what the Sister says with his eyes as well as his voice.
"We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." Anais Nin -
aquaphx — 17 years ago(December 27, 2008 08:27 AM)
I enjoy the first half part of the movie. it emphasize the sci-fi. but then the last part of the movie makes it like a drama movie.
i was expecting something more sci-fi at least like maybe the girl can transform, or futuristic battle against the neolites. but instead, the girl die by giving birth and the man become a father of twin daughter.. i rate it 5/10. -
suprnova86 — 17 years ago(December 11, 2008 01:32 PM)
Director Mathieu Kassovitz was very unhappy with the distributors, 20th Century Fox, producers and other partners. He described the film as "pure violence and stupidity" and stated that "parts of the movie are like a bad episode of 24.
same opinion here. WTF.
Wild At Heart -
arcuri99 — 16 years ago(April 13, 2009 08:23 PM)
OP: If this was a quality movie, there would be no need to read your post in order to understand it, and more importantly, to be entertained by it.
I love high and low quality movies, but I really wanted to turn this movie off after the first five minutes. If I was watching this movie by myself, I would have!
I get entertained by such trash as Freddy vs. Jason, but even this bored me and was too low quality for my taste.
Consider a high quality sci-fi movie: The Matrix.
You had a LOT of things left unexplained for at least half the movie, but you (critics and audiences) were highly entertained. The action scenes were well done, and the movie was executed well enough that you WANTED to find out the answers to the questions.
Now consider this movie, it was deemed a financial failure, and it got a whopping 7% on rotten tomatoes. 7%!!! If you select "top critics" and weed out the random people with blogs, that percentage drops down to 0%. -
gregbizkit2001 — 16 years ago(May 04, 2009 08:01 AM)
Great explanation man. Once the film felt rushed (after Aurora killed Toorup), it became harder for me to understand exactly what was going on at all, as far as why Aurora was pregnant out of nowhere, and why she was dying. Guess I must have missed those parts.
Although, I'd like to know what happened to that bitch Priestess. She killed Aurora's father, and then just disappeared?
