Finally watched "Babylon A.D." last night.

Now, I am a Vin Diesel fangirl like you wouldn’t believe. I have watched Chronicles of Riddick more times than is entirely healthy. So I’m predisposed to like anything he’s in, even with the understanding that it will almost certainly be a very bad movie and that I will be okay with that.

It wasn’t great. Mostly it was just…baffling. The first half was actually pretty good, and then it kind of disintegrated into "Wait, what?" It was not gracefully constructed, even the director’s cut, which we were watching–I suspect the theatre version may have been even more baffling–but large chunks of it were fun.

And, of course, Vin Diesel. I mean, c’mon. (Sadly, there was only one scene with Vin Diesel’s bare torso. This is near criminal.)

I have to say, however, that I am probably judging this movie more kindly than it deserves because it started to remind me heavily of my Shadowrun days–lovingly ridiculous firefights, complete and total lack of comprehension of what was REALLY going on, absurdly wonderful gimmicks, cross-border hijinks, a complicated metaplot that only the GM ever really understood and no one could predict, vast private forces arrayed against a martial artist, a dude with a gun, and a twitchy NPC, cheap technological resurrections…it was totally Shadowrun.

It would’ve been a fun movie to play.