If you enjoy seeing a fat man eat a rat or an elephant defecate into the mouth of a fat man or a woman urinate on a fat man, you will love this film. I didn't.
Babylon appears to be about the birth of silent films, the birth of talkies, the birth of color, and the birth of technicolor while illustrating the sadistic death of actors who lived through these times. Well, one of the actors who becomes a mogul (Tobey Mc Guire) loses his mogul-dom and is reduced to selling videos and various discs in a record shop by the time we journey to the fifties. The fictionalized star( Brad Pitt) at the height of his career praises the charm and importance of Hollywood, but when his fame fads he shoots himself. The starlet (Margot Robbie )who claws her way to stardom develops a gambling addiction and after her glistening star fades, dies mysteriously in her thirties. It is implied that she is murdered by the mob to whom she owes big bucks
The message is that Hollywood pumps and dumps its denizens seeking fame and fortune in apply named Tinsel Town. In other words, stay away from Hollywood if you do not want to be a victim of its system.
While no one views Hollywood as a noble toddling town, Babylon makes the viewer of its scatological, sadistic, decadent, over-the-top orgies and vulgar "let's laugh while a fat man eats a rat' the victim.
The acting is good, solid, while the script is chaotic and the film needs major editing After three hours of counting how many nipples are exposed and how many penises are displayed and is there public hair showing in the orgy, I felt like I was in an add for Lume that offers a deodorant for body odors in any part of the body, any crevice.
Yes there are a few good scenes where the actual chaos and faux pas around a set is humorous and does happen, but this film is too long and too obsessed with pushing the envelope of vulgarity;
Jean Smart is a stand-out gossip columnist who explains to the fading and downtrodden star Brad Pitt how the grinding Hollywood machine enjoys pulverizing stars and creates a downfall that the star is helpless to protect himself against.
All in all, three hours of a film budgeted at 78 million that is not worth paying 50 cents to see, is a massive waste of time. Time is our most valuable universal treasure which we all must respect, not Babylon
