Good Movie/Bad Movie 2: Phase IV/ Babylon AD

Phase IV
When you want to make a movie where ants are taking over the world, you need at last one of the two following things:

1. Mega super giant special effects, which let the audience forget the plot holes
2. A well thought out script with believable actors

As we are talking about a low budget movie from the mid 70s it should be clear, that we have here an example of the latter one. And I have also to admit that the premise of this movie is most certainly a bit trashy. But it centers on an interesting concept: What happened when another species starts to evolve and reaches a level of cognition that is equal to mankind.

One big criticism I’ve got is the poster, it didn’t transfer anything of the atmosphere of the movie. When you look at the poster you think of a occurring catastrophe, but the events in this tale are developing slowly, very slowly. You need to be patient to enjoy this movie and when you are a fan of big monsters and big action; you are most certainly not in the target group of this movie.
The main characters are two scientists, who want to explore why there was a major wipe out of a number of animals and the ants, the latter ones are filmed in extreme close- ups, which let them look monstrous. This way of looking on those little boys gives us also some creepy scenes, for example when they attack a spider with military logic, without being ridiculous.

The best way to describe it is to say, that we have here an extended episode of the Twilight Zone, it starts even with a narrator and the end leaves us with no direct answer and uncertain.

It is maybe not the best movie ever made, but it is a good Science Fiction Movie. It even shows us that Sci- Fi doesn’t need to be set every time in the future or has to include aliens, it shows us scientific fiction and that is one more point why this movie is great.

Babylon AD
Poor Vin Diesel. Started with movies like “Pitch Black” and “The Fast and The Furious”, later had his own James Bond Rip- Off “XXX” and now this piece of shit.

We are in another dark future, because there are so rare (1984, Blade Runner, Matrix, Brave New World, Akira, Brazil, A Scanner Darkly, Strange Days etc. Star wars doesn’t count, that was a long time ago). I admit that the dystopian branch of the Sci Fi genre is very clearly huge one, like the Vampires when it comes to Fantasy/ Horror, but when you are going to this playground you better bring your own toys with you or built something impressive out of the blocks from the others.

But the movie doesn’t do anything like this.
The lineup is at the first view pretty impressive; the director Mathieu Kassovitz is responsible for “La Haine/ Hate”, Michelle Yeoh was very impressive in movies like “Crouching Tiger/ Hidden Dragen” and Vin Diesel was maybe never a good actor, but his movies where easy fun.

Now we have here a picture which is a crude mixture of dystopian Si- Fi and wannabe religious references.
Vin Diesel is sent out to bring a girl to New York, her Nanny comes with them. It turns out, that the girl is genetically bred to give virgin birth to the new savior. At the end of the movie she is doing so and dies. During the course of the film Vin Diesel also dies, but is a few moments resurrected. Yeoh’s character is killed during these events.

Now there are a lot of movies with ridiculous storylines out there, for example “The Terminator”, but this movie doesn’t get it to build up suspense or interest in the protagonists. It is just boring and not one minute entertaining.