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Directed by: Kurt Wimmer Starring: Christian Bale, Taye Diggs I'm a sucker for a good action movie. I'll take a martial arts flick or bullet ballet over intellectually stimulating drama most days. Of course, talking about my love of action movies is only semi-relevant here, since Equilibrium is not technically an action movie, but there's action. There's also a lot of posturing à la Ryuhei Kitamura's "Versus". I can only pray that director Kurt Wimmer is cool enough to have seen "Versus" and has taken some inspiration from it, but that would be pure speculation. There are also some pretty boys with slick-looking clothes, high-capacity high-caliber firearms, more than a few swords, and a shameless Cadillac product placement. Don't get me wrong; I'm a whole-hearted proponent of every element I just listed, even the pretty boys and especially the Cadillac. I can sum up Equilibrium in a single number: 1984. The plot, in a nutshell, is that a great world war in the early 21st century destroys most of humanity and those who survive realize that mankind cannot survive another war, so the only solution is to root out the cause of war, which is determined to be feeling, as in emotion. So society bands together and deems that emotion causes war and therefore emotion is bad. Emotion also causes you to not walk blindly into a cage full of starving rabid lions, but apparently everyone's ready to accept that trade-off. The way the powers-that-be ensure that the citizens aren't secretly harboring emotions in private is through the mandatory use of a drug called Prozium. The government, which is led by a mysterious figure called Big Brother…oh wait, wrong story…a mysterious figure called Father, keeps the populace safe and prosperous. The army is led by an elite group of agents known as clerics, who are tasked with rooting out the rebels and destroying them and any pesky remnants of artwork, literature, music, or anything else that might inspire emotion. The clerics are kind of like the thought police; only they would be the thought commandos, as they are given powerful weapons and training in a special kind of firearm martial arts. They also get a lot of great-looking Asian-inspired clothes. I haven't seen an oppressive "perfect society gone wrong" movie since The Beach, and while this movie wasn't exactly daring or controversial, it was never bogged down to the point of being silly, although it flirted dangerously a few times. Fortunately, where the plot details got kind of thin, things were punctuated with action sequences that were very obviously inspired by The Matrix. This movie has so many Matrix elements that people less tolerant than I might accuse the film of ripping off the Wachowski brothers, right down to a showdown with armed security guards that looked an awful lot like the lobby scene. Had Christian Bale run along the walls, I would have had to stand up and call bullshit. For my part, though, I say if you're going to copy action scenes from a movie, it may as well be The Matrix. The movie opens with a scene of soldiers raiding a house where a ragtag group of rebels are hiding out. We're not really sure why the army's going after these rebels, only that protagonist Christian Bale is with the soldiers and he's standing in an "I'm going to be kicking some rebel rear end right away" pose, so you know he's going to be kicking some rebel rear end right away. Soon enough, we realize the rebels have holed themselves up in a room and the only way to get them is to send in Bale's character, Cleric John Preston. The lights go out, the door gets kicked in and we catch a fleeting glimpse of Preston sliding into the middle of a dark room. Then you see rebels by the dozens falling left and right, illuminated only by the muzzle flash of Preston's twin Desert Eagle handguns. It's a great scene that sets the tone for the movie for guys in the audience like me. The action, when it happened, was furious. Martial arts choreographer Wolfgang Stegemann (what's up with all these Germans?) doesn't have much of a film pedigree that I could find, but what he lacks in experience, he made up for in enthusiasm. We're treated to all kinds of two-fisted pistol packing, plenty of one-on-four, one-on-ten, hell, one-on-thirty combat, all of which was shot with a lot of quick cuts and clever lighting, which convincingly kept stunt doubles from being obvious and kept the main characters from looking clumsy. There's even two great sword fighting scenes and a lesson in Wing Chun hand-trapping, only with both combatants wielding handguns. While I liked this movie, I wish there had been more action in it, since an action movie makes better use of beefcake, guns and martial arts than a drama generally can. It was almost as if the director felt an obligation to try to hold the movie to a dramatic standard, but couldn't resist the urge to throw in low-brow visceral mayhem every now and then. I think the movie would have been much better as a full-on action flick. I'm positive that people will belittle the movie as a failed attempt at drama, but I'm much happier if I think of it as an action movie that tried to tell a story.
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May 3, 2004 00:10
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Not only do I disagree, but I really have trouble understanding why so many peple consider "Equilibrium" as the fifth coming of Christ. Yes, the action is pretty good, but there are, what, 4 action sequences? And one of them consist of Bale playing drums on five soldiers for a good minute. Hungryjack already stated what I hate about this movie, but I just don't take those flaws as lightly as he does. To me, the story was nothing more than 80% "1984", 20% "Farenheit 451", 0% original. Some parts are so cliché I laughed when I saw the movie for the first time (or maybe I was just laughing at the little boy's awful acting...). Just because of that, I'd give the movie 3/5, but I lower this to 2/5 for the "Forget "The Matrix", this movie will blow you away" on the box. Go ahead, hype your movie, but don't try to convince me this is better than "The Matrix"... They should've written "Forget Keanu Reeves, we've got Christian Bale" or something... At least it features that blind chick from "Red Dragon"... Edit: Typos + Holy poo poo! I forgot to whine about the scene where the black guy / traitor gets his face sliced off, and takes loving FOREVER TO FALL ON THE GROUND! LIKE 20 SECONDS! Longer than any guy in any Anime I've ever seen... CordlessPen fucked around with this message at 02:34 on May 3, 2004 |
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May 3, 2004 00:22
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quote:CordlessPen came out of the closet to say: I agree with you. I laughed a lot during this movie. The only thing that this movie had going for it was really great actors. Their talents were so thoroughly wasted though, I have no choice but to give this movie a 1. I hope Christian Bale is better in his next action role, as Batman.
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May 3, 2004 00:25
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The only issue I had was this movie was that Christain Bale lives If in the end he hadn't, this movie would be the best modern anti-utopian film.
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May 3, 2004 01:06
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I liked the movie, but did anyone else find it ironic that the first thing that happens after Father is kill is that a bunch of people kill some other people? Didn't they prove "society" right by showing how violent man is? Is it okay to bring up points of discussion here, or just reviews? 4/5
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May 3, 2004 01:26
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Society was right that humans have emotion and that the surpression of the emotion results in a certain kind of peace. I think this movie is deeper than people give it credit for. A lot of people compare this to 1984, calling it a cheap rip off. Well, it's only like 1984 in the idea of a totalitarian state, but not much farther. 1984 relied upon the chaos and insanity of the people, their raw unbridled emotions were what gave the state it's power. Logic, reason and peace had no part in Big Brother's plan. It was a society fueled by war and war anger. Equilibrium is the exact opposite. It's a state in which there is no war, no peace no anything. What I got out of the movie was that peace is a human abnormality. By nature we are violent, grotesque creatures, and to deny that fact is to create a colorless and bland society where everyone is unhappy. Peace is subjective, as the peace that this society created was no different than the peace created in a prison. It is forced, controlled peace, which is the exact opposite of utopia. If this film didn't have the action it did I reckon it would be considered a response to 1984. Humans forge their own way, and are too large and unpredictable to be controlled by any government. We are crazy men and we must be allowed to do crazy things no matter what the consequences.
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May 3, 2004 01:32
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quote:CordlessPen came out of the closet to say:
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May 3, 2004 02:08
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i hated this movie and voted it a 1. the action scenes were almost comically stupid, and the pistol-movement thing downright idiotic. the story was poor and sappy, and the whole theme was a cheap 1984/The Matrix knock-off. Bale acted horribly in the movie, and that dumb son was annoying. ugh, what an awful movie.
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May 3, 2004 06:27
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I liked this movie a lot, though the story was lamer then it needed to be, the action made up for it. I really only like this movie because of the amazing action sequences, especially with the use of the weird prongs on the base of the pistol. 4/5
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May 3, 2004 06:39
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The ridiculousness of this movie got to me. Still, it was entertaining enough. 3/5
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May 3, 2004 12:00
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Pretty good, if somewhat heavy handed in some aspects. The finale scene is somewhat underwhelming though. 3/5
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May 3, 2004 12:15
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Having seen this movie with terribly low expectations (thanks, Goons) I found I probably enjoyed this movie a lot more than most people. I wasn't expecting anything good...in fact, I was expecting everything to be absolutely horrible. I was surprised. I was no let down, but rather, surprised at the quality of this movie. That's not to say it was the fifth coming of Christ or whatever, just not as bad as I thought it was. The fight scenes were great. Everything else is sort of "meh", but I really really like the fight scenes. They're impractical and, well, stupid, but if you don't take them seriously, you can just watch them and appreciate the style. Overall, mostly due to not having been let down at all, Equilibrium is one of my favorite movies of the last few years. Mostly for the cool fight scenes. Revolt against the slow-motion! 3/5
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May 3, 2004 12:34
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I like a good action movie as much as the next guy, but this one really sucked at the 'suspension of disbelief' department. Let me name a few of the many, many plot problems of this flic. 1) The mechanism to suppress emotions is ridiculously flawed. Hey, let's distribute the drug which keeps our society stable in tiny, fragile glass capsules which require a second device to apply it. There are so many highly possible points of failure in this system one has to wonder why it worked for so long. And it only takes one missed injection to make the top banana go bananas. Wonderful. 2) So there are no emotions, but there are still families. The first rule of every totalitarian system so far has been to destroy the family. Well, one could argue that families allow for better spying on each other, but the question remains how - without emotions - families come into being in the first place. 3) A bunch of guerillas manage to overcome a trained and well-equipped police force - while running up stairs (hello Eisenstein) and without taking almost no losses to boot. 4) The underlying premise of the film, that suppressing emotions would stabilize a society, is complete and utter bunk. A society of non-emotional humans would collapse instantly. By what would humans be motivated if not by emotions? Totalitarism is not based on getting rid of emotions, but on manipulating them. The movie failed to solve the problems by its - certainly interesting - premise entirely and instead relied on cliche. Painful. Two points for effort and because you can view it when drunk.
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May 3, 2004 12:35
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Entertaining, stylized fights marred by grade Z writing. Worth viewing for the final 15 minutes. 3 of 5.
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May 3, 2004 13:47
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Felt like I was watching a heavy handed Fahrenheit 451 and Brave New World crossover. Gun-kata was obviously added to make the movie more accessible to the younger generation that normally wouldn't have given two shits about the plot otherwise. 3/5
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May 3, 2004 14:15
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quote:LorneReams came out of the closet to say:
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May 3, 2004 14:24
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Love this film. Great entertainment. Vastly prefer the action sequences to anything in The Matrix and the whole thing just bounces along like a big, exuberant birthday party. Obviously, the plot is largely piffle, Christian Bale is pretty hammy and the whole thing has a miniscule-budget feel, but that really doesn't matter. It's just good, mindless fun - without being cheesy. Oh, and any film that features both Sean's (Pertwee and Bean), plus the AmWay cop from `Go', plus the black guy from `Go', plus Emily Watson gets bonus points for having a cool cast.
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May 3, 2004 14:40
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Mostly rubbish pastiche of borrowed styles and half-baked ideas that were never explored beyond the initial stoned "whoa" moment. The action squences are some of the most slap-dash, disappointing crap I've ever seen. For a soldier trained with such supposed accuracy, Christian Bale does a lot of flailing around like a teenage girl in a catfight. Sean Bean is excellent in his ten minutes. I agree that it was mindless, but unfortunately the plot itself is wrapped in so much pseudo-sociology that it demands you take it seriously. I wouldn't define the weaknesses as plot holes, but rather requiring an impossible leap across a chasm of disbelief. The character and elements of the imagined world are barely sketched before they are torn down. Taye Diggs's last scene is an accidental laugh riot. 2/5
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May 3, 2004 21:24
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I liked this movie. The action sequences were way better than the ones in the Matrix and Christian Bale is much better than Keanu Reeves in every way. The ending could have been better but the movie itself was quite enjoyable. Some aspects of the movie seem quite low-budget, but not enough to detract from the experience. Biggest complaint I have is this: Sean Bean and Sean Pertwee, both excellent actors, get a total of about five minutes screentime each. I really can not understand why these two (especially Bean) were not used to their full potential. 4/5
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May 3, 2004 21:34
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Super generic plot, but really unique action sequences. 3/5
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May 3, 2004 21:45
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quote:Pipski came out of the closet to say: This is the truth - whilst the plot was little more than a one-dimensional copy of 1984 and didn't teach anyone anything about the evils of a totalitarian society it does serve as a very good vehicle for the action, which is surprisingly good considering the shoestring budget. (Not to do with the movie itself but a piece of friendly advice) If one purchases the DVD I recommend not watching the commentaries as they really show up the flaws in the making of the film that you are hardly likely to notice if you just watched the film and it will make you hate the film a bit more because of what it could, and perhaps should, have been rather than what it is. Alan BStard fucked around with this message at 22:24 on May 3, 2004 |
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May 3, 2004 22:19
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It's alright. I liked the way the film was washed out most of the way through, it gave a sense of how bleak existence was. In fact, the cinematography (is that it?) is probably the best thing about the film. The action scenes are original, and the storyline is at least more original than most films these days. As long as you're not too bothered by the rather clumsy and forced script, it's enjoyable.
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May 3, 2004 22:52
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Voting a 2.5, one of the most average movies I’ve ever seen. I liked a couple of the fights though, but watching the entire movie for less than 5 minutes of good action isn’t too fun at all, especially with a story like this.
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May 4, 2004 01:32
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The idea that "emotion" is forbidden allowed the makers of this film to get away with cheap, uninteresting visuals (most sets were large grey or white rooms and everyone wore the same outfit) and lifeless characters. However, it does not explain how they could reuse scenes and ideas from several enjoyable movies and yet somehow make them seem so goddamn boring. Now, normally, I would forgive bad dialogue/dull scenery/endless clichés/etc if it was a great action flick or comedy, but action scenes comprise only a few minutes of this movie and any laughs are unintentional. Equilibrium seems to have been made by stapling pages from old scripts together and giving the resulting screenplay to a film crew on Prozium. Not awful, just really, really dull. 2/5
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May 4, 2004 20:08
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I think this is one of those movies that you really like the first time you see it, then a little less the second time, then you start seeing the flaws. I can enjoy the movie despite the flaws, but I can see how people wouldn't. My biggest issue was how at the beginning, the police are all-powerful and take no casualties while slaughtering the rebels (who are <a> defending and <b> on home territory), and then all of a sudden it's Opposite Day and the police are dropping like flies (while defending on THEIR home territory). That whole theme was very heavy-handed, and I hate heavy-handedness in movies. I'd call it a 3.5; it's fun to watch, but there are other things I'd rather see.
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May 5, 2004 04:44
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The movie was a bit silly, not exactly original, but it had Christian Bale kicking an enormous amount of arse and looking excessively good whilst doing so. 3/5.
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May 5, 2004 05:36
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I loved this movie. I think the action, however little there was, more than made up for any plot failures. I wasn't even bothered by the plot, and I think the way F451, 1984, and the other books were worked into the movie was fine. It got kinda slow a little way through with the woman being interrogated and then burned, but I can look past that. And I maintain that the last scene with Taye Diggs is one of the best in any action film I've ever seen, and I've seen a few. People say it was totally underwhelming, but I think it fit perfectly. In fact, thinking back on it, I couldn't think of a better conclusion to that scene/lead-in to the gunkata scene at the end. 10 minute katana fight scene to 5 minutes of gunkata? That would have been ok. Whole lot of build up to surprise face cutting? Genius. It'd be really easy to tear this film apart, but I really didn't take it seriously. I took it more as a futuristic action film with drama that turned out a whole lot neater than I expected it to be. Level of expectations and all. 4.5/5 Kameh fucked around with this message at 05:50 on May 5, 2004 |
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May 5, 2004 05:48
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Pretty dumb. The setting is blatantly cribbed from what our society has collectively come to expect of the generic "futuristic fascist society" and the plot reeks of a cut and paste job of any number of books or movies about the subject: * Authority comes from a seemingly ageless face beamed onto every TV screen (1984) * The populace is controlled through a mood-altering drug (Brave New World) * Books are forbidden and caches are uncovered and burned (Fahrenheit 451) The much vaunted fight scenes are really quite boring, with only the sheer ludicrousness of Christian Bale being OMG SUPER HYPER GUN KATA GOOD making him jumping and twirling and thereby avoiding the hail of bullets from 30 machine guns be anything other than simply retarded. 2/5
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May 5, 2004 09:52
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I liked the movie a lot. Most of the people I know that saw it liked it as well.
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May 7, 2004 20:08
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Well poo poo, now I'm not so sure I should have let my roommate add this DVD to my netflix list. heh. In fact I think it arrived yesterday.
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May 7, 2004 21:51
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i dont care what other people think, i just downright loved this movie. action was very refreshing in that no CGI/wirework/bullet time/other crap you see so much of in movies today. some of the scenes were very original and i was spellbound when watching it in theaters (such as the dog scene, yeah that rocked). bought it the day it came out, had a EQ release party with all my friends where we watched it that night. dont like it if you want, but im not gonna say i didnt. once you get past the "OMG RIPOFF DIE" bandwagon its actually pretty good, expecially for the budget he had.
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May 8, 2004 02:36
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this film seems to get a little overrated by people. but it was amusing for what it was. 3.
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May 8, 2004 06:39
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i watched the movie the 1st time and thought it was rubbish! watched it a 2nd and thought it was quiet entertaining! the Philosophy behind the movie, i.e. if you do not have emotions you cannot have war etc etc was brilliant! such a nice way of thinking about it... Strong 3\5
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May 8, 2004 18:10
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I agree with almost everything said here. The action scenes were very well done for the most part and the story line does conflict itself in the society sense (Like when Father slams his fist down and demands he not be lied to. Emotion. The Blackguy smiling all the time and laughing at jokes. Emotion. B&'d for feeling.). The movie was above average in my mind set yet I own the DVD and don't regret buying it for an occasional cheap thrill. 3.5
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May 8, 2004 18:56
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Discussion
Somebody fucked around with this message at 22:16 on Aug 28, 2004 |
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May 9, 2004 15:29
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Not a review.
Somebody fucked around with this message at 22:16 on Aug 28, 2004 |
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May 9, 2004 17:29
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I liked this movie. Sure it had its faults, but compared to mistakes like Matrix 2 and 3, this one's actually watchable. It's a good popcorn flick with some nicely choreographed sequences. Weak ending, but since I don't think the main attraction of this movie is the story, I'll live. Useless tidbit: The Danish distributor renamed this movie to Cubic because 'Equilibrium' was too much of a tongue-twister. This happens quite a lot. 'Die Hard - with a Vengeance' was renamed to the rather uninspired title 'Die Hard - Mega Hard'. Anyway, 4/5 (4.5/5 if rated purely as an action-movie).
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May 9, 2004 21:54
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Watched it after much fanfare, and was mildly disappointed. It holds up on its own, but it's not earth-shattering. I suppose it's partially because the concept of an emotionless society is very ludicrous; also because the concept has been explored before. Voted three.
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May 11, 2004 17:08
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Everyone always puts this movie down by saying that it's a huge rip off. But if you look at it, it borrowed three things from three books, which didn't really invent any of the concepts themselves. 1. The Omnipresent totalitarian government taken from 1984. Didn't Hitler broadcast his message to every radio/TV in Germany in WW2? 2. Control through drugs, taken from Brave New World. This book came out in the 30's and has been borrowed from heavily by a multitude of sources. The concept might not be new, but it's been around for so long that I don't think you can really hate something for using it. 3. Burning books. I wasn't aware that Ray Bradbury invented fire, or even it's use on literature. Frankly, I was under the impression that the burning of books to control ideas had been around for about as long as the book themselves. The combination of these elements resulted in a good plot foundation, and the execution of the plot arc itself was very well done. As for the action in the film, it wasn't greatly borrowed from the matrix at all. The Matrix's action was primarily hand to hand, and was laden with wire effects. Equilibrium had no wire effects, and was primarily gun focused. I know some people will argue about the hand to hand focus for matrix action, but what fight scenes focused on guns? The lobby, and the 10 shots exchanged between Neo and Smith on the rooftop.
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May 12, 2004 01:08
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I watched it last summer, and from what I remember it was quite enjoyable. 4.5/5
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May 13, 2004 04:19
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