"Kill or be killed." That credo keeps an American mercenary named Toorop alive—and continually employed—in Babylon A.D.'s dystopian, conflict-ridden vision of our planet in the not-too-distant future. Toorop, however, is weary of his violent existence. So when a criminal warlord "recruits" him (i.e., has him kidnapped) for a job that will pay enough for him hang up his guns forever, Toorop grudgingly agrees.

The assignment: Transport a woman named Aurora and her guardian, Sister Rebeka, from their secluded convent in Mongolia to New York City. Never mind that Toorop has been branded a terrorist and expelled from his homeland. Or that most of the territory between the two points in question is a wretched wasteland.

Toorop knows nothing about Aurora's identity, who wants her in New York, or why. And he doesn't care. After all, a job's a job.

But Aurora's intercontinental "special delivery" proves anything but normal. She senses danger before it happens. She reads minds. And the death of anyone around her is almost her undoing. Could she perhaps be a messiah destined to save humanity? Or is she merely a pawn in a darker, more sinister scheme? Clearly the pseudo-Christian sect (dubbed the Noelites) from which she's come considers her special indeed ... and has big plans for her.

:: Review
You know a film has got problems when its director pans it. French filmmaker Mathieu Kassovitz hasn't minced words regarding the role Babylon A.D.'s distributor, 20th Century Fox, played in wrecking his project: "I never had a chance to do one scene the way it was written or the way I wanted it to be. The script wasn't respected. Bad producers, bad partners, it was a terrible experience."

The result is jumbled and violent. Oh, and familiar. Babylon A.D. borrows heavily from Children of Men, V for Vendetta, Blade Runner, Minority Report and The Fifth Element.

It's confusing enough that it made me doubt some of my own observations while watching it. It's ending raises so many questions I figured I had to have missed something along the way. In fact, it won't surprise me a bit if fans of the film - and there will be a few - write me after reading this review and try to "correct" some of my "facts." I'll just shake my head and sigh, because this is just that kind of movie, one that's so unclear on so many levels that you're left arguing with your row mates about what really happened.

What is clear is the movie's near-constant violence and significant profanity. Also its ultimately hostile attitude toward organized religion. Indeed, whether God creates or whether it's all the work of humans proves to be the film's principal philosophical question.

Sure, the Noelite sect has more in common with a cult than anything in mainstream Christianity. But the film appropriates so many ideas from the Christian story—not to mention frequent images of a cross—that it leaves little doubt about which religion it's indirectly slamming

A postscript: Babylon A.D. is loosely based on the 2005 novel Babylon Babies by French novelist Maurice G. Dantec.

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