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It's never a good sign when a movie isn't pre-screened for critics. It's an even worse sign when the movie's director washes his hands of the whole mess before it opens.
That's the double-jinx albatross borne by Babylon A.D., the latest save-the-cheerleader-type shoot-'em-up set in a rain-drenched, dystopian future.
The flick is directed by France's Mathieu Kassovitz (he of the stunning La Haine and the not-so-stunning Gothika). Kassovitz has already publicly disowned the picture, claiming that meddling on the part of Twentieth Century Fox rendered it all but unrecognizable.
For their part, studio bosses have claimed Kassowitz went wildly over budget, eventually requiring a completion bond company to step in and bail him out.
No matter who's responsible, the movie is a dud -- one so sped-up and illogical, it's almost painful to sit through.
And Kassowitz's complaining has a ring of truth to it, since you can see hints of a much better movie buried under all the frenzied jump cuts and gaping plot holes.
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The plot -- and stop us if you've heard this one before -- concerns a tattooed mercenary (Vin Diesel) hired to transport a young woman (Melanie Thierry) and a feisty nun (Michelle Yeoh) from war-torn Russia to New York City.
The girl, you see, might carry the secret to mankind's survival, so of course there are all manner of thugs and religious nuts waiting to kidnap her along the way.
It's a storyline that should sound familiar to anyone who's seen The Fifth Element or Children of Men, but while the former flick made the most of its futuristic setting -- and the latter its verite-style violence and political parallels -- Babylon fails on both counts, instead reading like a low-budget Michael Bay movie.
But even Michael Bay movies can be fun, and that's the one thing that's missing from Babylon, where the by-committee approach results in set pieces that are over before you realize you're supposed to care.
Scenes that could have had visual impact -- one where panicky refugees climb over each other like ants while attempting to board a submarine, for instance, or an Alaskan chase scene involving snowmobiles and a pair of bat-like fighter jets -- are instead cobbled together with such a degree of ineptitude, you'll be hard pressed to figure out what's going on.
And the missed-opportunity motif also extends to the story: We assume Yeoh's seemingly docile nun will turn out to know kung fu -- why else would they hire her? -- but the big reveal is given such short shrift, you have to wonder why they even bothered.
And speaking of Yeoh, it's the actors who stand to suffer most here, especially now that Kassowitz is on the record as hating the thing.
French thesps Gerard Depardieu and the always-sexy Charlotte Rampling have fun with their roles as cartoonish villains, but their combined screen time amounts to less than five minutes -- again, why even bother?
Yeoh is virtually ignored and Thierry is just window dressing, which leaves poor Vin Diesel -- a serviceable action star whose big comeback will have to wait 'til next year, apparently -- tasked with carrying a clunker that isn't even worth his time.
(This film is rated 14-A)