Top Line Thoughts: All I really knew about this movie going into it was that it was wild, crazy, over the top, excessive in every possible way. I mean the runtime is over 3 hours, of course it’s excessive. And it pretty much delivered on all of that. It’s kind of like a mix of “The Wolf of Wall Street” and Baz Luhrmann’s “The Great Gatsby” (interesting that those are both Leonardo DiCaprio movies – I guess he likes a party scene) but it takes place in the late 1920s – early 1930s and depicts Hollywood as it transition from silent films to “talkies”. There are tons of big scenes with hundreds of people and moving parts and frantic energy. Those are the scenes that worked the best for me. The good scenes are really good but everything in between felt like it dragged. The emotional resonance did not hit home; I didn’t really care about any of the characters in this movie except for maybe Diego Calva’s Manny, but even he loses appeal as he moves up in the world. I was way more invested in the larger, chaotic scenes because of the fun, comedy, and shock they brought. But even the joy in those kinds of moments wore off as the film went on and on for 3 hours. Towards the end, it felt like excess for the sake of excess, losing track of the point of the movie. 

The ending has also been a topic of much conversation as it features a maybe 20 minute long montage of scenes from this film but also classic movies throughout the history of the movie business. It either worked for you or it didn’t and it was not for me. While I did appreciate seeing some of the direct parallels “Babylon” drew to classic films (which I would not have noticed without the overt callouts), it dragged out a movie that was already overly long and gives you the most abstract visual sequence after already exhausting you with chaos for the previous 3 hours. That being said, it does accomplish the goal of ending the movie with the message that movies are powerful and amazing. 

The scenes I enjoyed the most were the opening party, the first day on set of the 2 different movies, and the first time filming with sound. Margot Robbie is fantastic as always and fully commits to everything she’s doing. In the movie and in real she just has that star power.

There are a million other things that happen in this movie – countless storylines and themes and actors (Brad Pitt??) – but I couldn’t possibly get into it all. “Babylon” is a wild ride if you’re willing to take it.

2023 Count: 4 seasons, 17 movies