Babylon is a long, messy, repulsive, and magnetic spectacle. Unfortunately despite the great performances and set pieces it doesn't live up to Chazelle's previous work.

The movie wants to bring you down into the waste yard that is Hollywood then pull you out to see the beauty that grows out of the trash. The problem is the movie spends so much time in the mud, and goes so deep into it that by the time it tries to pull you out at the end it's too late.

On the upside the cast are great and almost completely carry the movie, especially Margot Robbie's enthralling performance as Nellie. And as with Chazelle's previous work the set pieces are well executed and (some) characters are memorable.

However, these positives could not completely overcome the movie's fundamental flaws which are -- going too far with trying to revolt the audience (to the point of childishness), not spending enough time with the characters or important scenes despite its decadent runtime, and the ending coming off as completely pretentious in the context of how practical/cynical everything leading up to it was.

In the end, Babylon does serve its purpose as an entertaining spectacle, but like the Hollywood it critiques, its self-indulgence prevents it from achieving greatness.

1. It is a hig-enrgy assault on the senses. There is always something happening visually, loud music or loud screaming or loud animals aor something happening. It is over-the-top, bombastic and rarely boring.

The problem? Rollercoasters are fun, but they are fun because they last about five minutes. Would you want to ride a rollercoaster for an hour or two hours....no you would not. And that is the problem with this movie. It is throwing so much at you and it does not let up long enough for you to digest the last scene. If there was a cohesive story, I missed it. If there was character development, it got lost with the direction and editing.

If you are just looking for soemthing to watch and get lost in, then this works. Otherwise it is less of a movie and more of a collection of wild scenes with famous actors just slammed together.

This movie works on the premise that anything said loudly is more cogent than something said quietly. As such this movie is a thrill ride that is surprisingly un-cinematic. It is very acutely visual but it purposefully ignores any kind of meaning or emotional connection. It delivers on the shock value of images to the point where it completely abuses it. And withholds most of the emotion. It's almost a parody of a bad movie. It does and shows everything a good movie shouldn't. Unfortunately it is played straight and therefore cannot be qualified as such. It ambitions to have a grand message.

It wants to be an homage to pre-golden age cinema and also a critique of something. A reverence to the wholesomeness of early cinema and simultaneously a shining light on the excesses. Yet, Babylone is itself oblivious to basic screenwriting and movie making technique. The argument becomes almost moot.

Basic screenwriting suggests that a film should have a beginning, a middle and an end. It should have a recognizable protagonist, the more relatable the protagonist the better. You can have multiple protagonists/heroes, but it's more tricky and you're essentially diluting the emotional core. Traditional technique would be to divide the story in separate acts, basically doing one thing at a time, so the audience can understand what happens at any given moment. You need to know what a character is doing and why, and also sort-of anticipate what will follow. You can adjust the pace to what is happening in the acts to give thing more meaning or emphasis.

For instance, you wouldn't include an interminable manic sequence, without any connection with the rest of the story, where a snake runs loose and bites a whole party in the middle of the desert. With pacing, it is also important to have loud moments followed by quiet moments. When you keep the intensity of the film to a high throughout it is exhausting. You need quiet beats as much as loud ones not only for that reason but also to absorb the louder moment and emotional rushes. If you represented emotional intensity graphically it should be sinusoidal waved curves not a straight line.

More than anything, this film is the story of Damien Chazelle, the fall from grace of a Hollywood wunderkind. It's a tale as old as time really, he broke out with Whiplash, a sports movie disguised as a film about jazz. Then came LaLa Land, which is kind of a simple movie, the plot is subpar and it's rather manipulative emotionally, but it charms you and it works because it's a musical. He is a smart man, with a sense of rhythm and pacing, with a reverence to jazz. He's got a style, a pattern, a signature. Thoses were commercial and critical successes. Hollywood says: We trust you: make whatever you want. You'll have all the resources, access to any and every actors/talent. Go nuts. Looks like Mr. Chazelle took that quite literally.