'Babylon' Director Badmouths Film

Is there a French translation for the phrase, "Don't bite the hand that feeds you?"

Director Mathieu Kassovitz -- best known in this country for his acting turns in movies like Amelie and Munich -- is an award-winning filmmaker in his native France. He spent the last five years working on his dream project, an adaptation of the French sci-fi novel "Babylon Babies," got a Hollywood studio to co-finance it, and scored a big American movie star to headline it. So now that the movie is coming out, why is he so angry?

In an uncommonly open interview with SciFi Scanner, Kassovitz said, "I'm very unhappy with the film...I never had a chance to do one scene the way it was written or the way I wanted it to be. The script wasn't respected. Bad producers, bad partners, it was a terrible experience."

The movie tells the story of Toorop (Vin Diesel), a mercenary charged with protecting a genetically altered young woman from Eastern Europe to New York. Kassovitz said he was interested in what the original book stated about the changing nature of global politics and redrawing of national borders. But he now feels the movie doesn't communicate any of those themes.

• "It's pure violence and stupidity," he admits. "The movie is supposed to teach us that the education of our children will mean the future of our planet. All the action scenes had a goal: They were supposed to be driven by either a metaphysical point of view or experience for the characters... instead parts of the movie are like a bad episode of 24." >> Read the full interview.

The production was plagued by delays, weather problems, and budgetary concerns. But Kassovitz is now most upset that the studio, 20th Century Fox, edited down his original cut to a short 93 minutes. Vin Diesel jokingly asked if he was still in the movie after all the edits. The director said that he's happy with some of the scenes in the final product, but mostly he feels regret. "I had something much better in my hands but I just wasn't allowed to work...I should have chosen a studio that has guts."

Watch a Clip from 'Babylon A.D.'