EQUILIBRIUM
Amazon.com
A extended scholarship novella thriller in a classical vein, Equilibrium takes a important gash at a Fahrenheit 451-like cautionary fable. The story finds Earth’s post-World War III humankind in a state of serious romantic repression: If no one feels anything, no one will be desirous by dim passions to conflict their neighbors. Writer-director Kurt Wimmer’s monochromatic, Metropolis-influenced cityscape provides an glorious backdrop to the clumsy goal of John Preston (Christian Bale), a tip patrolman who busts “sense offenders” and crushes sentimental, sensual, and inventive corpse from a ended era. Predictably, Preston becomes intrigued by his victims and that which they die to cherish; he stops receiving his mandatory, mood-flattening drug and is even worried by a cursed restrained (Emily Watson). Wimmer’s wrongheaded armed forces arts/dueling guns design is perfect stupidity (a conflict over a puppy doesn’t help), but Equilibrium should be seen for Bale’s relocating opening as a male repelled behind to tellurian feeling. –Tom Keogh
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When firepower outweighs logic, you’ve got the making of a silly movie that borrows blatantly from LOGAN’s RUN, FARENHEIT 451 and THX 1138. EQUILIBRIUM looks like one of those movies where a highschooler is asked to imagine Aldous Huxley meets THE MATRIX and the results are hamfisted, derogative and frankly insulting to intelligent sci-fi fans who should be looking for originality rather than body count.Bale, who used to try for ‘next big actor’ is now going for the next Van Damme in FUTURE COP, er ROBOCOP, er TIME COP, no EQUILIBRIUM. He seems to excel now in playing gritty-lo-no-emotions (see or don’t see his last turkey, REIGN OF FIRE). This low budget MINORITY REPORT sci-fi movie has poor production values and a Cadillac Allante as a ‘futuristic car’. But the biggest crime this movie commits is to waste a talent like Emily Watson who looks a little silly playing the emotional damsel in distress to Bale’s Van Dammy hammy emotion cop. The logic in marketing this movie is to placate people waiting for THE MATRIX sequel. I’d rather rent a sci-fi original than waste time on this plastic bit of tripe.
Rating: 2 / 5
“They make s**t. Unbelievable, unremarkable s**t. I’m not some wannabe filmmaker, searching for existentialism through a haze of bong smoke. No, it’s easy to pick apart bad acting, shortsighted directing, and a moronic stringing-together of words the studio terms as prose. No, Im talking about the lack of realism. Realism. Not a prevasive element in modern American cinematic vision.” – This is Travolta’s opening text of the movie Swordfish. It came to my mind together with The Credits of Equilibrium. I’m not saying this movie has all these elements. But lack of realism is definitely the main. The fighting scenes for example. He is fighting about 20 heavily-armed guys (these looked like M-16s, but let’s just use the term automatic assault rifle). Leaving aside that he has just 2 pistols, he eliminates about half of them and then he just stands there for nearly 4 seconds while the pistols are being reloaded. So the scene is: Primary target standing in the middle of the room for 4 seconds against 10 men with automatic assault rifles… Here is another one: He eventually eliminates the second half, picks up the assault rifle and gets to the Father’s room and immediatelly drops it at the doorstep. For some reason, highly trained and very experienced warrior goes unarmed against his primary target, seeing that there is his cold-blooded ex-colleague with two ninja swords on the table and room with obstacles that can hide unexpected surprises, and he still drops assault rifle. OK, another one. He gets to the middle of the room. About ten guys with ninja swords appear and go towards him. They know he eliminated 20 assault-rifled guys with his 2 pistols and that at this point he has no weapon on himself. Still, they approach such a person with ceased swords getting so close to him that he can reach them or the swords, which is effectively the only way he can fight them. Again, he kills them all. Still standing in the middle of the room, his ex-colleague has two pistols on the table and knows that this guy does not like to be f***ed with. Instead of just shooting him, he still approaches him with unprepared weapon in more relaxed way than I would use to approach my car in the parking lot. Is that realistic? In comparison to Matrix, in Matrix the heroes’ speed and “invincibility” was justified by the fact that they were in fact hacking into basic rules of physics. But even if they did not, it would still look more realistic than Equilibrium – that one is supposed to be happening in real world and as such normal earth rules have to apply. Or a storyline problem: The Underground claims that they have planted bombs to all the clinics that make the drug. So why the h**l do they need to remove one guy first? If they destroyed the factories and he was still alive, would he pick a broomstick and by some kind of spell create the drug for entire city to keep them under control? Or another one: They are waiting for a sweep team to search his house for small capsules with liquid in them that can be easily disposed of. And they still let him in with nobody to watch what he’s doing. Simply, unbelievably unrealistic. I’ve seen Cube 2 the other day. Leaving aside the arguable quality of the movie, the ending makes sense. They send a highly trained agent “terminator” to find and kill someone. They sent several of them before and none succeeded. This one does. So she finishes the mission, learning the truth. They know she posesses the danger of exposing the practices and has to be killed, so they do. Simply, instantly, without her ever having a clue what happened (bullet in the head does not give you a chance to realize that you’ll be dead in a while). That’s it. I need to get rid of someone who is extremely dangerous and posesses immediate threat – so I won’t take chances. Mission completed, I have what I need and you are now too dangerous. Even saying “Ready, Aim” is unnecesary chance. But “Audiences love happy endings.” (quote from Swordfish again)
Rating: 1 / 5
THIS MOVIE IS SO STUPID, WHOEVER THOUGHT OF PUTTING THAT LINE SAYING FORGET ABOUTH THE MATRIX ON THE BOTTOM SHOULD BE SMACKED. THIS MOVIE MADE NO SENSE WHATSOEVER, CRISTIAN BALE LOOKS LIKE A BOGUS NEO. THE PLOT WAS SO STUPID (ITS ILLIGEAL TO HAVE FEELING OF ANY KIND)WHAT TYPE OF GARBAGE IS THIS IT MADE NO SENSE DOESNT SMILING REPRESENT EMOTION WHICH I SAW THROUGHOUT THE MOVIE, THE FIGHT SCENES WERE SO FAKE AND THEY WERE BLOODY AND GOREY, THE FINAL FIGHT SCENE BETWEEN CHRISTIAN BALE AND TAYE DIGGS WAS SO SHORT YOU WOULD EXPECT IT TO BE MORE LONGER AND MORE EXCITING THAN IT WAS BUT INSTEAD TAYE DIGGS GETS HALF OF HIS FACE CHOPPED OFF WITHIN A MINUTE OF THE FIGHT. DONT BUY THIS MOVIE THERE ARE PLENTY OF MOVIES THAT DIDNT MAKE IT TO THE BIG SCREEN THAT ARE BETTER THAN THIS CRAP.
Rating: 1 / 5
Honestly, I don’t have much to say, except for that was the biggest waste of my time ever! Such a knock-off movie! Remind you of The Matrix at all? Un-humanly people (i.e. agents), underworlds (i.e. Zion), and a hero who can handle them all (i.e. Neo)… Yeah, Christian Bale should never attempt an action figure/hero role again! Biggest piece of crap ever made!
Rating: 1 / 5
This movie tanked in the theaters and with good reason-the story and special effects are lame.
Rating: 2 / 5