Babel (Blu-ray Disc, 2007)

This movie is excellent training for people who are planning to switch to the night shift. Much coffee and plenty of trips to the bathroom to splash cold water on your face is about the only remedy for the stretching out of this story into the realm of the absurd. It's really about three twenty-minute stories somehow multiplied into a 2.5 hour yawnfest. If you were on the edge of your seat for the last movie you watched, you are likely to fall off as you drift asleep during the pointless, pointless fluff scenes that have no bearing on the plot of this film (e.g. the five minutes of people dancing to Mexican polka music during a wedding that could have been summed up in a ten second montage).

And this is what kills me about the movie: the story is so damned good! If they could have just cut it down to an hour and a half, I would be singing the praises of the dynamic duo who also brought you the equally stretched-out-for-no-reason "21 Grams." Instead, I have to rail against the stupidity of taking twelve minutes to demonstrate to the audience the difference between a deaf girl having an acid trip (more likely it's X, but you get the point) and a girl who can hear taking a walk through the strawberry fields.

Honestly, I loved the basic story idea. I loved how the relationship between the three tales was not so overbearing, and everyone didn't meet up in the end for a big group hug. I loved Cate Blanchett, and I was able to endure Brad Pitt for the entire movie, only once vomiting in my mouth a little. The Japanese guy from "Memoirs of a Geisha," whose name I'm too lazy to look up (you know - Ken Watanabe's buddy who saved his bacon in Manchuria), was just as good as he was in that far superior film.

Thus I give it a 3, with the knowledge that this film could have been utterly brilliant. Yes, there are moments of great inspiration, but they come about once every 2.5 hours.

Try it out, but make sure you also rented something with a pulse to fall back on. Even that ridiculous "Crank" movie might not seem so bad after sitting through this one.