Babylon (2022)

Babylon was a film I had high hopes for when I saw the trailer. It starred Margot Robbie and Brad Pit and was directed by Damien Chazelle who directed Whiplash which is a film I love and La La Land which has got a certain charm that this film was sadly lacking. The film is set in the late 1920s when excess seems to be normalised. The film starts with an elephant taking a dump on the camera which shows what sort of film we are in for.

The problem ultimately with the film is despite the excesses that are shown in painstaking detail, the film never feels like a film. Even the homage at the end feels somewhat forced and so what could have been a fun trip into a bygone period just feels seedy and a bit unnecessary. I had the same feeling when watching ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’. I thought the sex and drug taking went on a bit too long and the film suffered (its still awesome by the way). Margot Robbie is fine as Nellie but it would be nice to see her tackle a different accent as all her characters come from New York. Nothing wrong with the by the way but a bit of variety would be nice. Brad Pitt did seem to be a bit on auto pilot throughout this film. He’s still fun but the film could have done with a bit more energy from him. By far the best thing about this film is Tobey Maguire (never thought I would write that). It was this point that the film actually got good and felt like there was a point to the story but before I had time to enjoy what was happening, it was over.

Babylon is one of the more disappointing experiences at the cinema. It’s not terrible by any means but I think that this is a classic example of style over substance. Normally I would say that that's not a problem when the style is so good but in Babylon’s case, the style isn’t as good as it could have been.