Babylon – Film Review

A tale of outsized ambition and outrageous excess, tracing the rise and fall of multiple characters during an era of unbridled decadence and depravity in early Hollywood.

One thing’s for sure – Babylon is without a doubt Damien Chazelle‘s most ambitious and daring film to date, and that’s really saying something seeing as how he’s already directed some truly wild films in the past few years including the feisty Whiplash, the syrupy-sweet, emotionally complex La La Land, and the searing First Man.

Sadly, this is the only film that Chazelle has directed that I haven’t fallen in love with. Babylon is a decently enjoyable movie but it’s filled with an absurd amount of filler that tremendously pads out the runtime to ridiculous lengths. This movie is three hours and nine minutes long and yet it could’ve easily been told in two.

While I was watching the film, I got the impression that Chazelle kind of just wanted to go all out with this movie and do absolutely everything he could possibly think of, even if he understood it was going to make the film longer. This is a highly respectable movie, but it’s not one that I enjoyed every single second of.

There’s a ton of things to fall head over heels for in this movie, but there’s also a ton of things that bugged me. Why is this movie so flashy and in your face? Virtually every single scene plays out the same way too. There’s some over-the-top loud music playing while some characters do truly crazy things and say witty one-liners. That’s Babylon.

It definitely loses its appeal after a while but I’d be lying if I said that this movie didn’t entertain me a decent amount. The characters in this film are what really make it stand out, though. Brad Pitt‘s Jack Conrad is one of the most Brad Pitt characters ever, if that makes any sort of sense.

Diego Calva‘s Manny Torres is sort of the heart and soul of the movie, tying everything together. Then, of course, we have the amazingly talented Margot Robbie in the role of Nellie LaRoy, who wants to be a movie star more than anything else in the entire world.

Watching Nellie on set for the first time and simply be a total natural at it is one of the best scenes of the movie, and shows just how wonderful of an actress Robbie is. There’s also some fun cameo appearances along the way, including one from Tobey Maguire that was especially crazy.

This movie has some of the best production design I’ve seen in years and is a total visual feast for the eyes. Unfortunately though, I ended up walking away from Babylon wishing it was something different. And shorter. Chazelle’s first “fumble” is still a good movie. Go figure.

Babylon is a visual feast and a technical marvel filled with fun cameos, even if it can stumble along the way due to its absurdly long running time and lack of clear focus.