Babylon

Collaborating with talented screenwriter/wardrobe designer Raven Touchstone, Michael Zen helmed this impressive Vivid Video release, which notably also credits top industry Couples Romance label Adam & Eve in the opening credits.

It's styled as an Alice in Wonderland fantasy, not as good as the 1976 classic starring Kristine DeBell but lavishly produced. Makeup, costumes and styling are all first-rate.

Star Lexus is quite beautiful and sympathetic as the innocent heroine, suggesting to me a perfect Little Annie Fanny if that Playboy Magazine comic strip had ever been made as a major movie. She finds sex and plenty of it in Babylon, a fantasy world in a forest she accidentally reaches through her wicked Aunt's swimming pool and later down her bathtub drain.

Jeanna Fine is an inevitable scene stealer as Lexus's wicked aunt as well as the evil queen in Babylon, where her rule is threatened by the entrance of young Ivory played by Lexus. Our heroine is searching for the Falcon, a devil-styled masked character created in her dream by a combination of a real falcon trained by Fine's sexy gardener Vince Vouyer. Lexus is the movie's chief voyeuse, observing all manner of sexual activity and joining in eagerly.

Zen at Vivid peppers his cast with many of the biggest names and most talented players in the industry, almost a who's who. Chloe is perfect as a hedonist character delivering trademark anal sex and d.p. action, while lesbian sex is delivered in group fashion by "flower girls" Janine, Jill Kelly and Kobe Tai. Other superstars adding their heat to the movie's eleven sex scene include Dee, Inari Vachs, a kinky Candy Apples and redhead Halli Ashton, who I erroneously thought was Brittany O'Connell, bearing a distinctive physical and facial resemblance.

There are delightful double entendres (stated by Jeanna Fine) and among the over the top acting that contrasts nicely to Lexus' innocence we have a wild performance by makeup man Lee Garland made up and doing Jerry Lewis-level schtick as a doctor whose pelvic exam for Jeanna includes "tastefully" unseen fisting.

Running time is uncertain -I've seen it listed as 122 minutes but the print I watched seemed complete at just 75 -perhaps the usual Vivid disparity between VHS and DVD versions.

Admittedly, I am a big fan of adult movies. And no, it isn't just for the obvious reasons. I like the ones that have a developing plot and that feature people who are attempting to act and attempting to look comfortable in the setting of the movie. Too often, no attempt is even made (just a bunch of naked people flopping around). Occasionally, I'll find one that is a good movie which happens to be adult (The Dinner Party). Somewhere in between falls Babylon. The plot is intricate in the way that so few adult flicks are. While I very much appreciate that, this is also the major flaw of Babylon. Lexus shines as an innocent girl who learns the ways of physical love (all manners of it) in a world she discovers called Babylon. Unfortunately, the rest of the cast falls short of keeping up. Jeanna Fine (one of my personal favorites) is brilliantly cast as the wicked aunt/queen, but she is wasted with a nonsense script. The rest are completely forgettable characters. And the action is simply average (although it should be mentioned that there is a scene in this film that you don't routinely come across in mainstream adult movies so be warned). Overall, Lexus is very good, Jeanna is wasted, and the rest is forgettable. Not the biggest waste of time in the world but you can do far better.