Ben Lau

I'm actually surprised by the negative responses. The movie didn't feel slow. It paced actually fine with new things constantly reoccurring keeping you invested especially with the contrasting details each character shows besides the obvious events that each encounter. Not to mention, the soundtrack is memorable. Props to Ryuichi Sakamoto and others. I felt like a lot of people missed the point and wanted more action, Brad Pitt, and other minor incoherent things??? Maybe not for the action movie lovers but let's be a little honest, drama movies aren't always full of meaningless action scenes just for fun. I feel like some expected too much or something too extraordinary to happen in this film. The film is already portraying three different stories/cultures from disparate parts of the world. What else do you want? Now Babel might not be one of the best movies in the world but then there are some people who pull out some incoherent garbage claiming this film is a "political stunt". No just no. I mean read Chris Sparks review sounding close to a center-minded individual from the typical niche audience of the film industry which is sad to an extent to how people currently lack the sense of appreciation of films (the messages they are trying to evoke) and only want mundane basic plots. That's just missing the point of the film and any film as a matter of fact if you still believe that many movies are throwing political propaganda when in reality they are just trying to point out a simple message that many overlook nowadays. Taking Refat Salib's review as an example, "The person who watches this film must be well educated, having knowledge and information about geography, habits, traditions, culture, emotions, psychology, of nations and people. it is not easy to understand from first watching". Now I'm not implying that you have to be an analytical expert with an English major to understand this film but I'm simply asking for people to give films a chance and actually appreciate what messages they are trying to send through creative and unique ways of filming and storytelling. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if the same people said something negatively similar to the movie Parasite. That too touches upon the different cultures and aspects of social statuses- oh but maybe that's just too "political" for some. And finally, there are some who completely flopped throughout the film and lost their footing with the plot without even bothering to ever watch the film ever again to comprehend even the slightest ounce of it. People, it's not that complicated. Because of all these feelings of frustration and confusion of spending their two hours of "boredom" as a "waste of time", some decide to immediately exhort their anger here portraying an actually decent film as terribly bad which is not really fair. In general, this applies to any actually decent film not just Babel. Besides, it's inevitable to have that certain group of people always complaining which in turn makes this review almost pointless as these people would never change. But hey everyone's got an opinion, right? Overall, the film kept me entertained and curious. 4.2/5