Equilibrium

Rating:
Summary: Better than you might think!
Review: I cannot believe that I never heard of this movie. I rented it, after reading good reviews on amazon, and thought that it couldn't be that good, because I've never even heard of it. Boy, was I wrong. This is a superb movie. If you are an action/sci-fi movie lover, this one is for you. But it's more than that. The story itself is fantastic. The best way to explain it, is a mix between "The Matrix" and Orwell's 1984.

Christian Bale did a fantastic job in this flick, and because of this movie, I now consider him one of the most unerrated actors today. (Ever seen Spielberg's Empire of the Sun? He was in that as a young boy, and was a great actor even then.) That will all change soon though, as he is soon to take on the mantle of the Batman in Warner Bros's new revitalization of the Batman franchise. Watch this movie and you will see what a good dark knight he is going to make. Overall, I highly recommend seeing this movie, and I think it will make an excellent addition to your DVD library.

Rating:
Summary: saw it an hour ago!!
Review: I just saw this movie an hour ago..

First let me say, I saw that it was on sale on a swedish order-page, so before I ordered I had to read some about it here.
It was kinda weird, because I had never heard about it, and that weird considering Im a kind of a movie-buff... movies are my life..

The mixed opinions were one thing, but what shocked me was that people either REALLY loved it or REALLY hated it.. rip of matrix and stuff like that..

Well this is my opinion..
Yes I rated it to be 5, because I simply loved it.. I honestly can't understand why people even compare it to Matrix. I found very little that was Matrix styled. The only thing I can remember was the underground rebells, which you see on a lot of movies, so why bother the compare there?

The first movie that struck my mind was Gattaca, it was the same atmosphere.. and wow, what an atmosphere..

im NOT gonna go into details about the movie, and i recommend that you just see it without reading any spoiling reviews.

This movie was really original, it was kinda original like when I first saw Matrix(but im not comparing the stories) im just saying that it was as surprising as matrix.

There is lots of action in the movie, mixed with emotional thoughts. It was a very deep and intense story. It was kinda dark to. This movie has a lot of style. The very crazy and original GunKata was amazing as well, but what really had me hooked was Christian Bales intense and cool acting.

I dont care if Neo was the one, I think Christian would have KICKED SOME NEO ASS!!!

Rating:
Summary: Blend Matrix, 1984, Fahrenheit 451 and Logan's Run
Review: This is a decent movie with some serious problems. It doesn't bother me so much that it is quite derivative of a number of sources; that's not uncommon in the science fiction genre. Instead, I was really bothered by two serious flaws.

First, the exposition is so thick you'd think that Basil Exposition from Austin Powers is a resident of Libria. We get title cards and narration at the opening of the movie to explain the basic concepts, which is never a good sign. Then, 10 minutes later, they tell us all of the same stuff all over again in the context of the movie! I suspect that the redundant explanation at the beginning was tacked on as a result of testing. Nevertheless, telling us exactly the same stuff, and a lot of it, twice in ten minutes is boring. On top of that, some very important exposition (i.e., the fact that Bale is the very top Grammaton Cleric, the best there is) is thrown away so quick that if you cough you'll miss it.

Second, the very point of Librian society is that no one feels emotion, and thus there is no war or crime. Yet, people express emotion all the time in this film. We notice it first with Taye Diggs, who is supposed to be a Grammaton Cleric with total emotional control, who nevertheless laughs, smiles, and seems to be quite the emotional guy. Then the Party higher-up shows a lot of emotion, but I could buy that at least, because leaders traditionally do not have to obey the rules they set forth for others. So, the movie violates its internal logic from the get-go, with Diggs emoting away and making the viewer scratch his head about what's happening. This is not Diggs' fault. On one of the extras, the writer/director explains that he let the actors show emotion, because a movie about emotionless zombies would be boring. That is an amazing admission about your movie, to state that showing its actual premise on screen would be boring, and thus you have to cheat on it in order to make a decent movie. Wow. I would refer him to THX-1138 as a counterexample, but what do I know?

So, this movie is kneecapped by its own writer and director. Great. In other respects, it's very good; the actors do a fine job, the fight choreography is excellent, and the technical aspects are nothing but professional high-end stuff.

The Gun Kata stuff is goofy but very well done, and I was happy to suspend my disbelief because it looked so cool. I did have to laugh when it was introduced as Gun Kata, though, because all I could think of was the classic Gymkata with Kurt Thomas, which about as far from looking cool as you can get.

It's too bad the director didn't cut about 20 minutes out of this, tighten up the script, and stay true to his vision.

Rating:
Summary: A Gripping Futuristic Tale
Review: I was originally attracted to this film because of its star, Christian Bale, but I was immediately taken in by the story and amazing action sequences. Taye Diggs is mesmerizing and chilling. I would recommend this film over Matix in a heartbeat. I agree with other reviews, this is sure to be a cult classic.

Rating:
Summary: Low Budget Gold
Review: The shortcomings of many science fiction films are solved here. Although Equilibrium undeniably borrows from Farenheit 451, 1984, Brave New World, and The Matrix, it doesn't have the "we have more money than you" attitude the Matrix had, and is the only film to really do justice to the ideas presented in the three books previously mentioned. Fight scenes are very well done, especially considering the budget this movie had. Bale has his good moments, and the rest of the cast works very will with him. I just wish it wasn't so hard to find at Blockbuster, that's why I'm ordering my own copy today :).

Rating:
Summary: i love this film- i predict this will be a cult classic!
Review: This film is truly one of the best sci-fi genre movies around. If you enjoyed the Matrix, Bladerunner, 1984, and Kill Bill this is fresh while still borrowing sensibilities from these films! Smart and well acted!

Rating:
Summary: Suprisingly good
Review: I saw this movie recently at a friends place, somewhat reluctantly.

"Oh boy, another Matrix clone...yawn."

But a few minutes in Im like "Hey, this is like Farenheit, 1984, and BNW all shoved together!", and it had my interest.

The plot has some thin areas, no question, but as a paranoid future dystopia cautionary tale type of story its pretty good.

Taking a page from Brave New World everyone is on a mood altering drug; however whereas BNW's soma was a pep-pill, the Equilibrium drug is a emotion-suppressor, rendering people into calm, cool, and collected living mannikins.

Taking a page from 1984 the Tetragrammaton is a Big Brother-esque government, though they seem to rely more on human surveilance than on electronic spying, which suppresses art, culture, and entertainment as they engender to many emotional upwellings. There are also constant 1984-esque propoganda broadcasts, and the "sense offense" concept of the movie is pretty much the same thing as the "thought crime" of 1984.

The Fahrenheit 451 similarities mostly show up in the fact that art and various bric a brac are burned when found, and in the parrallels between the main characters; also, one could find some similarities in the puppy the main character becomes attached to and the little girl next door in '451.

Of course, having been made post-1998 the movie also has some martial arts. Even Yoda is a ninja these days, afterall. In this case however rather than more ho-hum Wire Fu we are presented with the concept of the Gun Kata, which sounds cheesy, but is actually somewhat compelling. At the very least its original, and that's got to count for something?

Like any good martial arts Gun Kata makes it practitioner invincible, or at least unbeatable by anyone else in the film. The focus of Gun Kata is a scientific analysis of the most probable angles of fire in a gunfight, enabling a practitioner to simultaneously avoid being shot and deliver highly accurate fire even in total darkness and at both close and medium range. It also has a melee component consisting of pistol whipping with extreme prejuidice anyone that gets too close.

Unlike the wire-enabled gyrations of the Matrix, the Gun Kata is very stationary; the practitioner basically plants their feet and becomes the focal point of a fire fight. Since the "art" is supposed to be trajectory based this even makes a certain amount of sense.

Cinematically this results in frenetic action packed sequences of very tightly shot violence that is actually really striking and distinctive. There is also some kendo/japanese katana fighting in the movie which is interesting, but much less interesting than the Gun Kata scenes IMO.

There is one scene towards the end that is obviously Matrix inspired, and the black outfit worn by the "senior" Grammaton Clerics (basically the ultra-chic "too sexy for my goth look" equivalent of Thought Police in the movies setting, or to put it another way for the comic book crowd like the Judges from Judge Dredd) is very Neo-esque, but otherwise this movie owes more to Bradbury, Orwell, and Huxley both thematically and stylistically than the Wachowski brothers or Hong Kong Wuxia.

Sean Bean is in the movie for about 5 minutes, as is the guy that played Robert the Bruce from Brave Heart, and Taye Diggs is another Grammaton Cleric who has maybe 10 minutes of screen time, but the movie revolves around Christian Bale. This guy is the king of minimalist expressionism. The merest fluctuation of his facial expression can communicate volumes. He was perfectly cast in this role, and I'm really looking forward to seeing him as Bruce Wayne in the next go around of the Batman franchise.

Bale plays a top-mark senior Grammaton Cleric who is basically the bizomb. The only mar on his record is that he failed to detect his wifes "sense crime" and turn her in for execution himself a few years previously. After going off his emotion-suppresent drug Bale basically becomes the Guy Montag/Winston Smith/Bernard Marx parrallel of this particular dystopian tale, proceeds to get involved in the de riguer anti-establishment underground, and turns his abilities against the oppressor Big Brother state. Fight the Power! You know the drill, standard dystopian fare from there on out, but with frenetic fight scenes.

As an aside, I bet that if 1984 was made into a big screen Hollywood movie next year Winston Smith would be a master of some kind of martial art and would kick some serious Party behind in the last 15 minutes of the movie. Nothing Hollywood loves more than a proven formula! But I digress....

So in summary, if you are a fan of dystopian fiction/literature and havent seen a decent action flick in a while, this movie is a way to satisfy both tastes all in one easy to swallow go. Keep your expectations reasonable and you'll have a good show.

Rating:
Summary: Equilibrium is Awesome
Review: To me this film is an updated Farenheight 451. While this movie isn't better than The Matrix it is way better than Matrix Revolutions. If this film had more money and commercialization behind it it might have done just as well as The Matrix. Also, I don't agree with the R rating. The fight seens are awesome! The clerics have ninja like training with their handguns. I think the movie even has a good moral. After seeing this movie you'll agree it should have been rated PG13

Rating:
Summary: Better than Matrix?
Review: Not yet.

Actually Matrix and Equilibrium are like apple and orange, you can not compare them. I am not sure why it say "better than matrix". The idea of this movie is about human emontion. Everyone takes drug to suppress the emontion in order to prevent war. It reminds me about Communism. There is theory and there is reality. We all know many problem about humanity, but it is not easy to change because this is just the nature of us. Why ? Only the God can answer it.

In this movie, I really like the gun fight, it is new to see and very creative.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting Sci-fi
Review: A dark and futuristic thriller, "Equilibrium" is a clever and convincing addition to the somewhat tired and repetitive science-fiction genre.

In a flawed society after World War III, emotion and feeling are considered the proeminent elements that lead to the collapse and fall of social order, control and organization. So, the best way to avoid a disastrous scenario is to block or destroy any kind of emotion, building an apathetic, controlled and obedient society.

Christian Bale plays a special agent whose mission is to kill anyone who dares to defy the rules and actually gets to feel anything, and his task is well suceeded until a point where he starts questioning his system.

Director Kurt Wimmer manages to combine diverse references, from George Orwell`s "1984" to "The Matrix", "Minority Report" or "Blade Runner", and delivers a consistent and gripping sci-fi thriller, even if its premise isn`t all that innovative. The futuristic society is dark and gloomy as it should, the atmosphere of the movie is dense and claustrophobical enough, the fight scenes are well directed and the plot presents some creativity (the ending, however, is a bit predictable, simplistic and anti-climatic).

"Equilibrium" is also a one-man show, where Christian Bale shows (again) that he is an enticing and credible actor, adding depth and presence to a character that could easily have been a cardboard tough guy.

Although it`s not as challenging as some of its influences, this cinematic experience is still a strong effort and an unexpected surprise worth discovering.