BABYLON
A grotesque, overlong Hollywood spectacle not worth your family’s time.
Should You Watch It?
BABYLON has some genuine cinematic ambition. Its ending offers a moving homage to movies from Hollywood’s Golden Age, and its pretty, lyrical theme song provides a welcome contrast to the film’s harsher music. But those virtues are buried beneath more than three hours of excess.
The content is not merely mature. It is sexually explicit and relentlessly obscene, with a lengthy hedonistic party, depicted sex, full nudity, cocaine use, drunkenness, drug addiction, vomiting, elephant diarrhea, and brief extreme violence. The film also includes what the source describes as politically correct attacks on morality and decency.
The practical answer is simple: SKIP IT.
The Story
NO SPOILERS — WE KEEP THE SURPRISESSet between 1926 and 1934, BABYLON follows Hollywood figures during the transition from silent movies to talkies and the later enforcement of the Hollywood Motion Production Code.
Manny Torres begins as a Hollywood gofer and becomes involved with aspiring actress Nellie LaRoy and established actor Jack Conrad. As the industry changes, their careers and lives are reshaped by fame, scandal, addiction, and Hollywood’s changing standards of decency.
Is It Any Good?
Two stars means BABYLON has some worthwhile filmmaking buried inside an experience the source finds excessive and unpleasant. The ending creates a moving homage to the Golden Age of Hollywood, including films such as SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN. The theme song is described as pretty and lyrical.
The weaknesses are substantial. The film runs more than three hours, and even its Hollywood homage goes on too long. The jazz score is described as bombastic, atonal, strident, pounding, and blaring rather than musically compelling. First-time viewers may become impatient waiting for the movie to finish.
The Worldview
BABYLON presents a strong Romantic worldview alongside a revisionist history of Hollywood from 1926 to 1934. It depicts very strong hedonistic pagan behavior and includes politically correct attacks on the creation of the Hollywood Code of Decency. The film contains some light moral elements, but the review ultimately describes its content as abhorrent and obscene.
The movie’s Hollywood world exalts fame, sensation, sexual freedom, and excess. It also portrays corruption, addiction, gambling, and the destructive consequences of the entertainment industry. Its treatment of the Hollywood Code of Decency departs from a biblical view by attacking morality and decency rather than presenting them as goods worth protecting.
The film draws on facts about Clara Bow and the careers of silent-film stars, but the review says it sensationalizes and exaggerates those facts. The source also identifies a lesbian side character who sings a dirty song and attempts to seduce a new female star.
BABYLON’s excess reflects the warning of Scripture: “Whoever loves pleasure will be a poor man” (Proverbs 21:17).
The Content Guide
The specifics — spoilers included by nature — so you can judge for your own family.
Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements
Very strong Romantic worldview with very strong revisionist history of Hollywood from 1926 to 1934 and very strong hedonistic pagan behavior, plus strong politically correct elements that attacks the creation of the Hollywood Code of Decency, with a lesbian side character who sings a dirty song and is on the prowl to seduce a new female star, and with some light moral elements
Foul Language
At least 185 obscenities (including many “f” words), four Jesus profanities, five GD profanities, eight light profanities, elephant in open truck unleashes bucketsful of diarrhea on man, woman vomits onto floor and onto man in suit
Violence
Brief extreme violence and some strong violence includes man eats a large live rat, image of blood splattering on wall when man is shot in the head offscreen, scenes of a large battle during the Crusades being filmed on a movie set, drunken man accidentally tumbles over a balcony wall at his fancy house but lands in his outdoor pool below, threats of violence, and thugs from gangster shoot at two men in car as it speeds away
Sex
Multiple images of depicted fornication, Asian woman sings a dirty lesbian song and later wonders if an actress “swings both ways,” lewd references to oral sex, woman performs sensuous movements while being filmed in a makeshift saloon on a movie set
Nudity
Images of total frontal female nudity, one or two images of full frontal male nudity, multiple images of upper female nudity, some images of rear and upper male nudity and rear female nudity, woman in skimpy outfit crashes a wild party and dances ferociously
Alcohol Use
Alcohol use and drunkenness, woman becomes an alcoholic
Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse
Smoking, cocaine snorting in one scene and woman becomes a drug addict;
Miscellaneous Immorality
Woman becomes addicted to gambling, corruption, creepy gangster has a creepy dungeon full of human oddities.
Talk About It
Questions for the drive home, the dinner table, or the youth group.
What does a culture that celebrates excess eventually ask people to sacrifice?
Romans 12:2 · 1 John 2:15–17Why might a society need standards of decency in entertainment, and what should Christians consider when deciding what to watch?
Philippians 4:8 · 1 Corinthians 10:23–24How do addiction, gambling, and corruption damage a person’s freedom and relationships?
1 Corinthians 6:12 · 1 Timothy 6:9–10Why can beautiful art still come from a morally troubled culture, and how should we respond to beauty without excusing wrongdoing?
Genesis 1:31 · Philippians 4:8The Final Word
BABYLON finds some moving images in Hollywood’s Golden Age, but the source review says those moments cannot make up for its sexually explicit content, obscenity, hedonism, violence, and attacks on morality and decency. For a cleaner choice, see. SKIP IT.
