Director-screenwriter Damien Chazelle (“La La Land” 2016) has attempted to capture the wildness and hedonism of Pre-Code Hollywood in “Babylon.” He succeeded on that score, with the positive side instilling the picture with outstanding production values (cinematography, scoring, editing) and good performances from the actors, but failing to create watchable entertainment with a glaring lack of direction and a meandering storyline, graphic, offensive, and just plain creepy content, and a very lengthy runtime of just over three hours.
Stars Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie deliver their usual excellent offerings on screen, with a large and talented supporting cast that includes Jean Smart, Diego Calva, Li Jun Li, Lukas Haas, Eric Roberts, Olivia Wilde, and Albert Hammond Jr. Honorable mention goes to Justin Hurwitz, who composed the superb musical score.
Unfortunately for Chazelle and Paramount Pictures, this film about the “wild” era between the advent of “talkies” in 1927 to the the adoption of the Hayes Code of 1934 was a miserable failure at the box office, partly due to competition from “Avatar: The Way of Water,” “Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody,” “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish,” and “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” However, the failure of “Babylon” in general release was mainly due to its own decadence and misfires, sending the film into Babylonian captivity.
Babylon (2022)
cinema
My Review
Director-screenwriter Damien Chazelle (“La La Land” 2016) has attempted to capture the wildness and hedonism of Pre-Code Hollywood in “Babylon.” He succeeded on that score, with the positive side instilling the picture with outstanding production values (cinematography, scoring, editing) and good performances from the actors, but failing to create watchable entertainment with a glaring lack of direction and a meandering storyline, graphic, offensive, and just plain creepy content, and a very lengthy runtime of just over three hours.
Stars Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie deliver their usual excellent offerings on screen, with a large and talented supporting cast that includes Jean Smart, Diego Calva, Li Jun Li, Lukas Haas, Eric Roberts, Olivia Wilde, and Albert Hammond Jr. Honorable mention goes to Justin Hurwitz, who composed the superb musical score.
Unfortunately for Chazelle and Paramount Pictures, this film about the “wild” era between the advent of “talkies” in 1927 to the the adoption of the Hayes Code of 1934 was a miserable failure at the box office, partly due to competition from “Avatar: The Way of Water,” “Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody,” “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish,” and “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” However, the failure of “Babylon” in general release was mainly due to its own decadence and misfires, sending the film into Babylonian captivity.