Fulltime Casual - An Australian Film and TV Podcast

Vin Diesel is back in Mathieu Kassovitz big budget sci-fi action film Babylon A.D.

Well, call me Mr. Hypocrite - I’m unfeasible excited by this film despite the novel the film was based on, the director, and the writer being Frenchmen. In the film adaptation Vin plays Toorop, a special forces veteran who takes a lucrative one-off job of escorting a woman named Aurora from Russia to China. She’s carrying a genetically modified fetus which is the focus of intense interest by several nefarious parties.

In theory the film doesn’t sound exactly A-grade, however the novel the film is based on “Babylon Babies” is quite good, the director has done some beautiful work in the past, and the casting looks good. The film also looks really sexy as evidenced by the trailers.

There are currently two cuts planned, one for the European market and one for the American. The Euro version is slated to weigh in at roughly 2 hours, 40 minutes - expect the American version to be roughly half that thanks to the distributor Fox. They thought it was just too long.

I’ll be lining up for this one - it’ll be worth seeing on the big screen.

Kevin Smith is something of an icon to the Generation X film geek. He’s responsible for memes involving prime numbers, reprehensible personal hygiene, and inter-species erotica, all of which cut pretty close to the edge in their time.

Given his previous comedic films it’s really not a surprise that the next thing he’s working on is titled Zack and Miri Make a Porno. It’s a story about two friends who decide that in order to get themselves out of financial strife they’ll get into the porn business. As with most of Kevins writing the dialogue is likely to be one of the highlights, well paced and ironic with plenty of pup culture references. We’ll keep you posted as firmer details come down the pipe, you can see the teaser here.

Transporter 3 is in production, try to contain your enthusiasm. Yet another director of dubious lineage is at the helm of an undoubted masterpiece of creative fiction by Luc Besson (he wrote Léon and the Fifth Element don’t you know, then did something to his hair which effected his brain and the result was Danny the Dog and Taxi 4). I’m torn between being offended by an additional one of these films, and the numbing realisation that Jason Statham is still employable.

There is a trailer, it looks very exciting with the running and the jumping, but there’s none of the charm of the first film and no Qi Shu. Not interested.