After urging from numerous sources, the little woman and I decided to buckle down and rent this Christian Bale/Taye Diggs joint, Equilibrium. Actually, it was her idea. I was all for renting something that didn’t make me laugh at the screen during it’s own trailer over a year ago, but sometimes the wimmens can have an overpowering effect. I call this the “You made me watch Star Wars Episode II three fucking times to make sure that it sucked so let me rent what I want or it’s no nookie for you” effect. It’s a dirty card to play ladies, use it wisely.
Anyway, on to the flick itself. Literary “borrowing” nontwithstanding, the movie wasn’t all that bad. At least not until you get to the end, and we’ll get to that in a bit. Let’s paint the picture here. We’re in a post-apocalyptic future, not too far from the present day. Human emotion has become outlawed in an attempt to eliminate war, murder, suffering, basically anything caused by Pauly Shore films. Enter Christian Bale as John Preston. He is the elite head honcho of a police regime called the Clerics, and they are humanity’s last defense against human emotions. Fairly quickly into the flick, he has to ace his fellow Cleric played by Sean Bean, because he begins to show signs of feelings. After this, we learn that Preston’s wife was killed four years previous because she too had violated the anti-feeling laws. This does seem to have a slightly visible effect on Preston, but he continues on in his duties.
However, not everything can retain it’s Brady-bunchiness, and Bale’s character soon learns that feeling is better than his drab drug-fueled existence, even if it does mean emotionless sex and being the hardest-ass-motherfucker on the planet. So he sets out on a quest to save puppies, and eventually, humanity. Sounds like fun, right?
The Good
Alright, the action was fucking sweet. Even in a post-Matrix world, this film still comes up with some remarkably unique fight scenes. And the beauty of the film comes in the exploitation of Christian Bale’s number one ticket to success: his complete inability to show some real fucking emotion in his acting. Tarantino should take a few notes here when he casts himself in his next flick. Play an unemotional robot who was programmed to act like a first year drama student Quentin, you’ll be revered for it.
The Bad
I heard a lot of reviewers comparing this film to Fahrenheit 451 and 1984 before I saw it, so immediately I knew that there would be a post-apocalyptic backdrop and humans being manipulated by a higher power. The problem is that while it aspires to follow in the footsteps of these great books, (which, unlike most of the clueless reviewers, I have actually read) it falls completely short in terms of plot. Thankfully it never claims to touch their level of quality, although I could not ignore that the entire story seemed too derivative. The action itself is great, but you get only a slight glimpse into the reasons why Bale’s character would forsake his (in perspective) great fucking life for the fate of an outlaw, which means complete and utter burnination.
Yes, the end scene is great in terms of action, but only for about three minutes. What the fuck happened to Taye Diggs? Did we run out of budget? I get the idea that Bale is much better than him, but the fight lasts all of three fucking seconds. And after that, it’s only about a minute until the resistance takes over and we can only imagine that everyone goes back to feeling emotions again. We guess, because they don’t show us a thing. No consequences, no foreshadowing, just Christian Bale standing triumphant over the huge evil power which now seems sort of silly in retrospect. Kind of like the limits of their tyrannical grip on humanity only reached as far as the operating budget of the film, which ran out about three minutes from the credits.
The Lowdown
Rent this movie: if you’re a sci-fi fan with a taste for post-apocalyptic mayhem.
Don’t rent this movie: if you love doggies. Fucking pricks, the dogs did nothing to you!
Good damn review.Great review Sharkey, only I found the film leaning more towards Huxley’s \”Brave New World\”. And the flick gets kudos for not taking the easy way out. Emotion violators? Gun-kata victims. Works of art? Burninated. Sean Bean? Headshot. Emily Watson? Burninated like ribs on Memorial Day. And my only disagreement w/ you would be Taye Diggs’ character. The entire movie he sucks up to John Preston. Left. Right. Center. Brandt shows up puckering for Preston’s sphincter, and the movie shows that he’s aggressive, manipulative, and driven. But his skills are simply mediocre when compared to those mad skills of Preston. It was no wonder to me that Preston smoked his ass fast and furious. Just my $.02 worth. Either way it’s a new one for the ole DVD collection.
budgetI’m glad you at least checked this one out, Sharkey. I love the flick, but I can dig your criticisms. The action (brief as it is) is enough to earn my love, though.As for Taye, uh, yeah, there was kind of a real-world reason for the brevity. I caught a screening with the director doing Q&A (a super cool guy, I’ll add), and while part of it was that he thought it would be a cool change to have a major ‘boss’ taken out quickly, another factor was that their shooting time with Taye was somewhat limited, so they made it quick.Anyway, thumbs up from me. Glad to see some exposure on the BAMF. The dude’s next movie is supposed to be more chick-centric action.Oh, and you forgot to mention– BEST RELOADING TRICKS EVER.
hmmmDid I watch the same movie as you guys? Here’s a quick rundown of the issues I had…I’ll be brief and with no spoilers: In the future everyone will attack you in a circle People with no emotions still smile and feel a need to \”greet\” one another with Hello! how are you? etc… People with no emotions still look \”smug\” when they like to see you fail….furthermore they smile a WHOLE LOT (Taye Diggs) \”I’m going to make sure this is taken care of myself\” ’cause he can burns things better than fire? What a lame excuse! (x2 I might add) Apparently…the \”New World\” happend because of the Rodney King beating. Seems resonable enough? People with no feelings would still rather go with a \”good looking’ slicked down somewhat functional hair do. I think they would all be shaved…more efficant and who CARES what you look like? Acitecture (SP?) is NOT an artform. So we can still make huge dramatic doorways shaped like letters and they will open really cool, instead of a plain ‘ol functional door. Even though we don’t care how it looks one way or another it should still look cool and impressive. The biggest thing was that they REALLY didn’t stick to the whole no emotions thing. Even when Christian catches his buddy…he offers to get him a \”light\” sentence and clearly does not want to shoot him. What the fuck? It should have just been…boom! no questions asked, I mean..he’s like a fuckin’ robot so we are told. Definatly a good RENT, but DO NOT buy with out knowing what you are getting into. Fun to watch with friends in an MST3K sort of way.The main thing that got to me was the hype and the 1984 comparisons. It’s a let down…Like asking Santa for Transformers and opening your present to find Go Bots.
you missed some things\”Yes, the end scene is great in terms of action, but only for about three minutes. What the fuck happened to Taye Diggs? Did we run out of budget? I get the idea that Bale is much better than him, but the fight lasts all of three fucking seconds. And after that, it’s only about a minute until the resistance takes over and we can only imagine that everyone goes back to feeling emotions again.\”The director knew it would be something you love or hate, I personally loved it. The directors reasoning was you know that at the end battle the good guy is going to win, there’s going to be a long drawn out fight, quippy witicisms exchanged, the goood guy triumphs, movies over right? Well Kurt Wimmer threw the formulaic action movie ending on it’s head, and offed the bad guy in about a half second.The reason bale defeated him so easy is remember earlier on in the movie when diggs and bale are sparring kendo style? bale is still struggling with getting emotions, at the end when he becomes the ‘cold god of death’ he has no problem dispatching him.oh, and the director said diggs needed to catch a plane and pronto.\”People with no emotions still look \”smug\” when they like to see you fail….furthermore they smile a WHOLE LOT (Taye Diggs) \”Diggs wasn’t on the prozium I dont think, neither was ‘father’ (as evidenced by his swank office). and mafianinja quit trying to find flaws, you’ll find them in every movie if you really look for them. look up ‘suspension of disbeleif’.the movie definetely smelled of B (motorcycle helmets? come on), but i think it was pretty quality for the budget.
that’s the problem…I wasn’t looking. They were glaring. I am a fan of crap cinema, the kind that are so bad they are good, but this wasn’t quite bad enough…just so bad it’s bad.
Feelin’Yes, it should be mentioned that Taye and Father are definitely off their dose. Hence the smugness, anger, etc.
ugh…nOPresentation isn’t emotion. Right angles, flat surfaces is efficiency and organization, as well as exhibits beauty. Hair is useful for winter months. There aren’t that many errors. Because as have been said, father isn’t dosed and is in control, so all are according to his authoritative dominant control.my opinion on quick diggs death. Liked it, it’s abruptidy left me plenty of room to acknowledge it’s boldness as a unorthodox boss fight. So i let it be respectable, rather than whine about missing out.
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