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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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? -
bsbandlfolova — 16 years ago(July 09, 2009 05:14 PM)
I don't know about you guys, but I was entertained. Isn't that what movies are for? To entertain us, not to educate us. If I wanted to learn somethingI'd watch a documentary. However, I did want more for the ending. That pretty much screwed me overwhen he was holdings hands with the kids I thought they were going to fly away or something.
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blondehrtbreakr — 15 years ago(May 25, 2010 01:21 PM)
I agree with the OP. This movie really isn't THAT HARD to understand. You actually have to THINK though, and a lot of people don't really want to have to think or piece together a plot. They want it delivered w/ a nice, pretty bow and if it's not delivered to them as such - then they call it "plot holes".
This movie does make you think. I watched it 3 times, and gained more insight with each viewing.
Also, if it is SO TERRIBLE, why even bother getting on the IMDB page for the movie, and further - getting on the Message Board for the film, just to whine. Makes zero sense to me.
There are 100's of movies I HATED, but I don't bother getting on a message board to moan about it, I just move on. I think maybe one movie in my life, ever made me "want to whine" about it online.
(The movie was, 'Survival Island' with Jaime Pressly). Don't ask. You think Babylon AD was bad? You ain't seen nothin' yet
LOL. -
Zero_Wolf — 15 years ago(December 09, 2010 08:49 AM)
Seriously, what are your questions? What about this movie doesn't make sense?
Why did they have her grow up in a convent in Mongolia? If she was such a big deal, and they needed her in NYC, why not keep her there, or at least nearer?
Why did she need to be in NYC anyway? What's there?
Why, if she's so important, and she must be raised in Mongolia for whatever reason, did a powerful global religious organization hire a Russian criminal to hire a mercenary to take her on a perilous journey to get her to America? Why not send an army of your own people? If you have the ability to hit an armoured car on the other side of the world with a tactical nuke you obviously have a lot of money and resources at your disposal. Certainly the ability to buy a plane ticket and send a cab.
Why does a powerful global religious organization need to engineer a "miracle"? Aren't they already a powerful global religious organization? Her image is projected all over the skyscrapers in NYC. What exactly is she shooting for?
What did he mean by breeding her with an Artificial Intelligence, or however he phrased it? Does she have a chip in her brain? Would the border scans not pick that up? If not a chip, precisely what does that mean?
How does whatever her AI aspect is allow her to figure out at the age of two the form of 19 different languages, in the confines of a cloistered convent with little to no interaction with the outside world?
Why was the convent destroyed? And by whom?
Why would a submarine illegally smuggling refugees allow any sort of access to the bridge? Why not just open any of the other hatches and file the people into those?
How does her AI aspect give her the ability to see the future, leading her to repeatedly prognosticate?
Why wait till she's 20 to impregnate her?
If you're going to engineer her to begin with, how about engineering her to reach functional maturity faster?
Who's going to believe and be converted by this whole virgin birth scenario? Wouldn't the people who believe that believe it even if you told them that about a woman who was knocked up the old fashioned way anyway?
Since these kids apparently have telekinesis, isn't that miraculous enough?
Why do these kids have telekinesis?
Why was it necessary to engineer a baby mixed with an AI to have a suitable person to artifically impregnate with telekinesis babies?
Why are the religious people and Gorski's people shooting at each other in the street fight scene?
Or was that a mistatement by Toorop, and they weren't Gorski's people, but dad's people? In which case why didn't they start shooting at each other to begin with?
What's wrong with Toorop that shooting him in the liver will lead to his death in a matter of seconds?
Why would the babies bother to shield Toorop from the missile explosion?
Since the babies obviously
do
shield Toorop from the missile explosion, why did they shield him in such a way that though he suffered no burns, he lost his left leg and the normal function of his right arm below the elbow?
How did the religious folks find Toorop and Aurora in the Hummer so fast?
Why cast Michelle Yeoh if you aren't going to choreograph better martial arts scenes?
Who felt the cage fight scene was necessary?
That's all I can think of for now. I'm sure I'll edit it in the future to add more. Thank's in advance for your response.
For the record, I like Diesel. I thought he was good in Private Ryan, and I really liked both Pitch Black and Riddick (amazing visuals). I recorded this movie specifically because he was in it. Having said that, the plot of this movie was incomprehensible and the action scenes were horribly contrived. This is, in my opinion, a bad movie. -
Sweet_Canela1 — 15 years ago(February 21, 2011 08:30 AM)
Someone said the following, "Not entirely successful but a nice attempt at being thought provoking. The fact that most don't get it means though that it failed"
I 100% agree. I thought this was the worst movie I had ever seen in my life! Seriously I watched the movie waiting for them to tell me what the hek was going on and felt like they never did. And then I really wanted to rent the extended version because I was convinced that there were 30+ missing minutes that would explain it to me. We rented it and no still confusing as ever.
Believe me I like "thinking" movies I don't want everyting handed to me. Inception is one of my favorite movies and I had to come on here to get some explanations after that and after I was like oh I must've missed that. I came on here to get explanations for this movie and now I must say I don't think this is the worst movie ever but the worst executed movie ever.
OP what you described sounds like a great movie! I'm sure the book was even more amazing. But I'd have to watch this movie about 10 times, know a lot about sci-fi, and not blink once to get what I was supposed to. And I just have better things to do.
So I agree with the point I quoted earlier, it could've been so much more and completely failed at what it was trying to do. -
Oblivion14 — 14 years ago(August 29, 2011 02:59 AM)
People who didn't "get" the movie probably have never come across true cyberpunk genre.
And yes, that's what it was - near-future science fiction - cyberpunk. A future that is very very possible.
Religion and technology is a very common theme. One of the greatest writers of cyberpunk William Gibson used both to a very effective degree. And his world is very believable its scary. A world were nation-states have become obsolete and the real powers are mega-corporations, a world where almost everything is completely industrialized. Horses are extinct for example, food sources have become more inventive out of necessity (imagine breakfast 'cereals' made out of edible worm protein). Cyborgs are common, and in addition to hardware and software, a large part of the new tech is 'wetware' - applied biological science, ranging from information viruses to disposable internet access stickers to biodegradable computers to organic implants. And almost every available surface of the Earth is a city, one of the largest being 'the Sprawl' a megapolis spanning the eastern side of the United States), some AI's have achieved true sentience (viewed and named by the hacker culture as gods), and the internet has become the lifeblood of the human race.
For those who are unfamiliar with Gibson, the movie 'Johnny Mnemonic' is based on a short story of his. His books also inspired the Ghost in the Shell and the Matrix movies among others.
Seriously though, grab one of his books sometime. He's one of the most important authors in the twentieth century, and his books really makes you think. Especially if you're still young like me, it's a future we might really be looking forward to.
I thought the movie was actually really great, fits the cyberpunk atmosphere perfectly. The metaphysical take on high technology and the fact that the story does not revolve around showing all the latest gadgets and toys of the future like most 'Sci-Fi' action movies do. It's so understated you learn to take it for granted. It's just part of their world, ordinary nothing special.
I also thought the ending just perfect. But I guess some people expect their usual Hollywood all bad people explode and the guy gets the girl ending though.
EDIT: Oh and yeah, one thing about cyberpunk - it does NOT spell out things for you. Does not go the easy way of having the villains suddenly confess everything about his or her plans at the end, and most often does not give you cookie-cutter ending that leaves no questions. It makes you think, and for those who don't like thinking, well go watch Terminator or something. -
Siamois — 13 years ago(September 17, 2012 08:54 PM)
is how people are desperately trying to find qualities in a film when even the person who created the film says it is crap.
Most directors wouldn't have the guts to say so and would let an unsuspecting audience made up of undiscerning people like you believe the movie is actually good when it is blatantly obvious it is not. But he went beyond that.
And the funny thing is that despite doing that, you still think it's a great movie. -
empathy44 — 13 years ago(February 23, 2013 06:41 AM)
Gads it's been a long time.
I'm not desperately trying to find qualities, I liked it a lot. People who don't like it tend to ask questions that I was able to figure out by watching the movie (once).
The director had the movie taken away from him and that's the bits he's complaining about.
"We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." Anais Nin