Last May, on a far distant website, I first made mention of a new film titled Babylon A.D. from director Mathieu Kassovitz (of Gothika fame) starring Vin Diesel as a missionary hired to escort a young woman who has been genetically tampered with and who contains a virus that could destroy the human race. Aside from Diesel, the film featured a great international cast including Michelle Yeoh, Gérard Depardieu and Lambert Wilson.
There had been rumblings that there would be two versions of the film: a directors cut and a shorter cut for distribution to ADD suffering nations. Yesterday our friends over at Twitch discovered that the film has been submitted to the BBFC (the UK’s film classification board) with a running time of 90 minutes. Not only is it ludicrous that Fox apparently cut half of the film from the proposed director’s version but to make matters worse, it looks like they’ve cut it to fit a 12A certificate which our Twitch friends equate to a soft PG-13.
I love Diesel the action star and I want to see this film succeed and I don’t mean to say that PG rated films can’t be good but what gives? It’s not like kids are really interested in seeing this type of story which, by the way, sounds like an awesome premise. If they want Diesel, they’ve got The Fast and the Furious god damned it!
In the back of my mind there’s an idea forming that I should stay away from the theatrical release of what is sure to be a mess but what are the chances that I’ll get an opportunity to see the longer cut of the film?
Whatever cut we get, we’ll get to see it on August 29th.
I’ve tucked last year’s the leaked trailer under the seat.
I’ve tried to wait it out with Vin Diesel. He’s one of those action guys like Dwayne ‘The Rock’ who seems to be on the brink of putting something together, but rather than giving us that memorable performance they do “The Chronicles of Riddick” or “The Pacifier” instead. He had “Boiler Room” and “A Man Apart” that were edgier, not typical Vin Diesel roles.
And you know what else, while I’m at it, people can knock on “The Fast and The Furious” all they want, but it was a good popcorn flick. Obviously a Honda won’t fit under a semi in real life. It’s a movie.
“Fast and the Furious” is one of my many guilty pleasures. The second movie was crap (even the racing was lame) and the third was a riot mostly because I went with a good group of people and between that and the drifting, it was fun. Mind you, most of us just went for the cameo.