I was lucky enough to catch a "special advance screening" of Babel so I'll share my observations.

The film was billed as a series of interconnected dramas. I was expecting something like "Changing Lanes" where characters drift in and out of a storyline, leaving it richer as a result. Instead I found three completely different dramas, connected by minor threads. If I have a fish that goes to Mexico and I don't see it for three weeks I call it a story about a fish. I don't call it an interconnected drama because I did something else during that time and I happen to know the fish.

Alone each of the stories was interesting and could have been expanded into a movie. Instead they just seemed to be a collection of short stories that left me wishing to get back to whichever was most interesting at the time. The minor time shifts didn't add anything or improve the situation. I've never had an ending plot twist that left me asking "so what?" until this movie.

The end result was an entertaining set of stories with very limited plot and some minor failed attempts at social commentary or the nature of humanity. The catch line from the television trailer is "Pain is universal, but so is hope". Unfortunately this picture felt more like a few thoughts tossed together on a napkin and quickly made into a movie than a quality film. The topics are the flavors of the week: immigration, terrorism and sexy Japanese schoolgirls (ok that one never gets old). Many plot aspects were left completely untouched and unexplained. This often makes for an excellent ending or plot tactic but not when the movie feels like you've just read the first chapters of three different books.

What was there was extremely predictable. The few times I wondered about the fate of a character lasted 30 seconds. There was limited drama and the action seemed unusually metered for a film as scattered as this one.

The acting and camerawork in the film was quite good. A large portion of the dialogue was in foreign languages (Japanese, something Arabic sounding and Sign Language) and subtitled. The background music fit quite well with the current mood. Execution was not an issue in this film.

Regarding content there is a fair bit of nudity and a number of sex scenes. Violence is certainly a part of the film but not distractingly so. There is some bad language and the movie is rated R.

Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age