BABYLON (2022) Review
Directed by Damien Chazelle
It’s Hollywood. It’s cinema. Damien Chazelle’s Babylon is like your love-hate relationship with your favorite show – there’s a lot to love there but there are also a lot to hate that you end up confused and just compromising the hate with the things that you love. Get it? That’s just how I felt after watching Babylon.
It’s gloriously chaotic. The first and second act were quite fun, I’m not sure if I was following the story right or if there was even a story to follow but I didn’t mind. Because it’s about dreamers and the grandeur of cinema. How can you not like that? But the film felt like it overstays some of its moments. You can definitely feel La La Land written all over the film from the music to the storytelling technique. I’m torn if that’s a good thing or not but it definitely is not when it came to its third act.
The third act is messy. I’m not really sure how the story got there and it has come to a point where you don’t know how the story will move forward. And I felt that on the last twenty minutes of the film. It’s as if Chazelle doesn’t even know how to end his film that he has to use some of his old techniques from his past successful films and more.
You might have even more questions after watching the film. But I can’t deny that I still enjoyed it. I was totally engrossed on its first two acts that I invested so much in the film and ended up a bit disappointed. But I didn’t regret watching it. You can still feel the love put into making it.
3 OUT OF 5 STARS
‘Babylon’ opens in Philippine cinemas on February 1, 2023 from Paramount Pictures through Columbia Pictures. Rated R-16 by the MTRCB.