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Equilibrium (1401213448)
Description
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| A broad science fiction thriller in a classic vein, Equilibrium takes a respectable stab at a Fahrenheit 451-like cautionary fable. The story finds Earth's post-World War III humankind in a state of severe emotional repression: If no one feels anything, no one will be inspired by dark passions to attack their neighbors. Writer-director Kurt Wimmer's monochromatic, Metropolis-influenced cityscape provides an excellent backdrop to the heavy-handed mission of John Preston (Christian Bale), a top cop who busts "sense offenders" and crushes sentimental, sensual, and artistic relics from a bygone era. Predictably, Preston becomes intrigued by his victims and that which they die to cherish; he stops taking his mandatory, mood-flattening drug and is even aroused by a doomed prisoner (Emily Watson). Wimmer's wrongheaded martial arts/dueling guns motif is sheer silliness (a battle over a puppy doesn't help), but Equilibrium should be seen for Bale's moving performance as a man shocked back to human feeling. --Tom Keogh Editorial Descriptions are usually submitted by the manufacturers, publishers and authors. Contact us if you are one of them, and wish to change the above description. |
Reviews
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Author: Guest
This movie has all the elements to make it a classic..I went into this film thinking that with a name like it has it's bound to be a 'shoot kill little green men' type of film with men in space suites carrying a serious grudge for aliens..blah blah.
But this film has heart soul and much much more...it has suspence,dram,action, trust and all emotions of man...and woman..
Our hero is torn between fulfilling his duty to the state and his duty as an entity seperate from the state...Bale made this role his with his naural intensity....
THis is definately a recommend.
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Author: Guest
I found this movie worth watching JUST for the action sequences. I can watch it over and over again. Kicking butt never gets old! The Gunkata that director Kurt Wimmer created for this movie is showcased great! Can't wait for Ultraviolet to come out so we can see more of this form of martial arts!
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Author: Guest
This movie is really great. The plot is unique, the acting is wonderful, and the action sequences are really really cool. A must see for any action movie enthusiest. Christian Bale is the man.
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Author: Guest
I like Christian Bale's work (American Psycho, Batman Returns) but hadn't seen this movie until a friend recommended it. WOW, you completely understand his awakening after going off "the dose." Fight scenes remind of "The Matrix" but with their own twist. You must add this movie to your collection!
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Author: Guest
Straight to the point: the comparisons of EQUILIBRIUM to THE MATRIX are not only borderline absurd; they ironically serve to reveal the inherent structural weaknesses of this movie.
To begin with I don't know if EQUILIBRIUM actually made it to the theaters. I saw it on video a while back, with its packaging complete with critic blurbs on the cover saying "It's like the MATRIX, only cooler," or something equally stupid. As this sci-fi Dystopia came out during the height of THE MATRIX trilogy's appeal, that conversation was an effective marketing tool, not a spontaneous one from the public. More importantly however, of the two plots, THE MATRIX is more believable--thereby more compelling--for a specific reason.
THE MATRIX essentially follows the FRANKENSTEIN tradition from 19th century literature of Man screwing around with his own nature without having any real understanding of it, and unleashing hell in the process. With so many books and movies doing brilliant and socially relevant variations on this theme through the generations, for the Wachowski brothers to work within its application to the Information Society like so many before them takes a pair of unique minds. Especially since Arnold's THE TERMINATOR series basically does their plot brilliantly long before they did. (Not to mention SOILENT GREEN's application of the parable to population growth and consumption; PLANET OF THE APES with the parable as a civil rights metaphor; and the MAD MAX trilogy's application of it to the oil industry.) But that also meant, however, they had a great deal of help in making it plausible with all those models. The brothers Wachowski took the help and ran with it, making history in the process.
EQUILIBRIUM fails where THE MATRIX succeeds for me on this point: a post-world war/holocaust Dystopia that survives on the suppression of anything central to human nature must still, as the movie shows, be built on some bureaucratic structure that supports a neo-capitalist, neo-feudal, pyramid/caste system--a system the movie hints at via the cleric-police but does not truly show. Referring again to its literary antecedents: Orwell's most popular books--1984 and ANIMAL FARM-essentially focus on the moral failure of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. As such, in this post-Soviet Union communism world, it is hard for people to not believe our own press regarding the purity and unmitigated glories of our current system, having "won" the Cold War. But Orwell was equally if not more so concerned with the evil of pure capitalism and imperialism. Particularly capitalism's ability, when left unchecked and unfettered within an imperialist system, to, as the political philosopher Michael Lind says in his book UP FROM CONSERVATISM, "completely replicate, down to precise details of organization and detail, the communism that it opposes." The writings of Orwell addressing this were censored-that's right, censored-by the English press when he wrote them before and after World War II and are the stuff of dissident literature footnotes and trivia now. As such they are even more important to address today, given that our world has been economically redefined (sort of) from Globalization, a "new" animal we have yet to truly understand. There in fact has been an open debate amongst literary types for decades now as to whether Orwell's socialist/communist Dystopia that is 1984 is a more accurate prediction of the future than Aldous Huxley's techno-capitalist Dystopia that is BRAVE NEW WORLD. Most people, after even the most cursory look at Globalization and its discontents today, will tell you, via Huxley focusing on the irresistible force of pure capitalism meeting the immovable object of unquestioning scientific innovation (and human freedom becoming the thing that's got to give when that happens [and does]), that he beat Orwell by a mile.
How is this relevant? Simple: the fundamental plotline of EQUILIBRIUM is the journey of a party-faithful man who, almost accidentally, reclaims his humanity in a dehumanizing world to such a degree that he becomes the force capable of initiating a truly human revolution. The dehumanizing world is one where the primary philosophy of existence is simple: human emotion is the cause of all suffering through its eventual inspiration to war. Therefore it must be suppressed and exorcised from the human experience for a healthy community and a stable body politic. This is accomplished through the manufacture, dissemination and institutionalization of state-sanctioned drugs (designed to suppress all emotion), and the institutionalized incineration of all things from the old pre-War culture that inspire emotions to surface, i.e. art, literature, passionate love, pets, etc. None of this could be possible without the systems and structures of the drug's manufacture and dissemination to each and every household. Therefore, *the state-subsidized monopoly that is the drug industry* is what is actually running this Dystopia, not its stated philosophy--which the very designers of the drug and the system supporting it could easily prove to be scientifically bogus. That is the true message. EQUILIBRIUM is a cautionary tale about CAPITALISM gone mad, not any experiments in communism or socialism or neo-Puritanism, like what it implies. It is Capitalism-as-Frankenstein: the blindly arrogant belief that "the market" could not enslave its creators...leading to exactly that. The writers, seemingly to avoid pissing off the would-be corporate distributors of this film, fail to make this abundantly clear.
Where THE MATRIX never loses its structural grounding in its "scientific-innovation-via-artificial-intelligence-as-Frankenstein" cautionary tale, the writer(s) of EQUILIBRIUM never fully establish theirs. And it is this sense of "let me tell you a cautionary tale without telling you in actuality what you really need to be cautious of" that makes the movie not nearly as good as THE MATRIX or its classic Dystopia predecessors with a clear cut, courageous-and relevant-message.
Christian Bale, the star, is still, however, one of my favorite actors. Sean Bean and Taye Diggs are great. I expected good performances in EQUILIBRIUM (and some silly special effects) and wasn't disappointed. I wouldn't buy this movie, but I would recommend you seeing it.
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