Babylon (2022)
Dir. Damien Chazelle
Babylon is a chaotic, maximalist plunge into early Hollywood excess—but for all its noise, scale, and ambition, it never fully comes together. At over three hours, the film asks a lot of its audience, and the pacing becomes its biggest enemy. There are stretches that feel electric, even brilliant, but they’re buried under so much bloat that the impact fades almost as quickly as it lands.
Damien Chazelle clearly swings for the fences, stitching together a fever dream of debauchery, artistic desperation, and industry reinvention. And to be fair, there are moments to appreciate—sharp visual sequences, strong performances, and flashes of emotional clarity. But they feel like isolated highs rather than parts of a cohesive whole.
Instead of immersing you in the rise-and-fall arc of its characters, the film meanders. Scenes drag. The momentum repeatedly stalls. And the longer it goes on, the more the spectacle wears thin. By the final act, it becomes a cinematic marathon that doesn’t quite justify its length.
What’s most surprising is how forgettable it ends up being. For a movie this loud, this frantic, this determined to shock and awe, it slips from memory faster than you’d expect. You leave with impressions—some good, some impressive—but not lasting resonance.
There’s ambition here, and even artistry, but ultimately Babylon feels like a sprawling, exhausting film that never finds a clear rhythm. Three hours you feel every minute of.
