Genre: Drama
Directed by: Damien Chazelle
Starring: Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Diego Calva
Running Time: 189'
Verdict: ⊗⊗⊗⊗
Babylon is a bold, colorful and often entertaining movie about making movies in the early 20th century, covering the transition from silent to sound films, rise and fall of the movie stars of that age, and their lifestyles full of debauchery, deviance and duplicitousness. However, while the movie industry part is interesting and lifestyles of movie stars are thrilling, their stories are neither. With the movie being over three hours long, it could easily cut an hour by trimming down the individual storylines and focusing on the actual theme. There is too much focus on the characters, even though the film is obviously about a period of filmmaking. It glorifies movies and movie making, but then gets bogged down in character development and tries to implement several stories that they are not as interesting as their backdrop. It's really hard to like or sympathize with most of the characters. There is some really good acting from three leads, but a lot of great performances come from supporting characters. Specifically, I was super impressed with Flea as a hard, intimidating movie producer, and P.J. Bryne who flat out steals one scene. The movie also features an amazing soundtrack, and some impressively choreographed and filmed scenes. Babylon desperately wants to be more than it is, and in a lot of aspects it succeeds. It is occasionally very funny, occasionally very dark and occasionally very profound. Sometimes it is extremely exciting, and sometimes it simply drags on for too long. Like its characters, Babylon promises a lot from the start, but gets significantly less fun towards the end.
Directed by: Damien Chazelle
Starring: Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Diego Calva
Running Time: 189'
Verdict: ⊗⊗⊗⊗
Babylon is a bold, colorful and often entertaining movie about making movies in the early 20th century, covering the transition from silent to sound films, rise and fall of the movie stars of that age, and their lifestyles full of debauchery, deviance and duplicitousness. However, while the movie industry part is interesting and lifestyles of movie stars are thrilling, their stories are neither. With the movie being over three hours long, it could easily cut an hour by trimming down the individual storylines and focusing on the actual theme. There is too much focus on the characters, even though the film is obviously about a period of filmmaking. It glorifies movies and movie making, but then gets bogged down in character development and tries to implement several stories that they are not as interesting as their backdrop. It's really hard to like or sympathize with most of the characters. There is some really good acting from three leads, but a lot of great performances come from supporting characters. Specifically, I was super impressed with Flea as a hard, intimidating movie producer, and P.J. Bryne who flat out steals one scene. The movie also features an amazing soundtrack, and some impressively choreographed and filmed scenes. Babylon desperately wants to be more than it is, and in a lot of aspects it succeeds. It is occasionally very funny, occasionally very dark and occasionally very profound. Sometimes it is extremely exciting, and sometimes it simply drags on for too long. Like its characters, Babylon promises a lot from the start, but gets significantly less fun towards the end.
Rokin
