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Equilibrium (2002 Christian Bale movie)

Ethros

Ethros

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I just watched this 2002 film (starring Christian Bale) this morning, and wondered what people's thoughts on it are?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0238380/


The main reason I watched it was for Bale, and indeed he did make it watchable enough. Although not the worst film I've ever seen, it was a little dodgy I thought.
Kinda felt like a blatant combination/rip-off of 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 made by someone heavily on speed who's seen The Matrix about 500 times. And the whole thing had this straight-to-video vibe about it all.

The fight scenes were more funny than anything, being way OTT, like Bale taking on about 50 soldiers all with machine guns, whilst he himself just had two little handguns, etc. For a second I thought I was watching one of Patrick Bateman's fantasies or something :)


Never mind destroying all that art though, the worst part was when all those little puppies got gunned down! Awwwww!

I'm also surprised by it's fairly high score on IMDB- 7.8/10
Hmm, I wouldn't say its that good


Thoughts?
 
I think it's pretty shite, really.

The whole "Gun kata" thing is just funny. Yet it's a serious film...apparently.
 
Ethros said:
I just watched this 2002 film (starring Christian Bale) this morning, and wondered what people's thoughts on it are?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0238380/


The main reason I watched it was for Bale, and indeed he did make it watchable enough. Although not the worst film I've ever seen, it was a little dodgy I thought.
Kinda felt like a blatant combination/rip-off of 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 made by someone heavily on speed who's seen The Matrix about 500 times. And the whole thing had this straight-to-video vibe about it all.

The fight scenes were more funny than anything, being way OTT, like Bale taking on about 50 soldiers all with machine guns, whilst he himself just had two little handguns, etc. For a second I thought I was watching one of Patrick Bateman's fantasies or something :)


Never mind destroying all that art though, the worst part was when all those little puppies got gunned down! Awwwww!

I'm also surprised by it's fairly high score on IMDB- 7.8/10
Hmm, I wouldn't say its that good


Thoughts?
Click to expand...

I love that movie. I like the fight scenes. I understand movies are unrealistic. If it was real, he would have died badly and been discovered by everyone in the first 5 minutes. I really like the scene with the puppy.
 
Easily one of my favorite movies of all time. Pretty much all of it is totally awesome. Just imagine... living half your life and THEN feeling for the first time.
 
Just watched this one recently as well.
My score 4/10
Although I like Christian Bale as an actor I'm quickly discovering he made a lot of really bad movies.

While it had a good concept the delivery was poor.
The gun Kata thing was totally ridiculous and was a very, very poor imitation of the Matrix.

That's about all the time I want to invest further in this movie. ;)
 
crookeddy said:
Easily one of my favorite movies of all time. Pretty much all of it is totally awesome. Just imagine... living half your life and THEN feeling for the first time.
Click to expand...
But it's a carbon copy of what happens in Fahrenheit 451. With the banning of books and Montag at first being this right-wing book burner, then he reads some and slowly discovers this joy for them and rebels against the system etc etc.
In this the Bale guy just burns all forms of art instead, otherwise its exactly the same.

And the oppressive government is just some poor mans 1984, V For Vendetta, etc


I guess if one had never read any of those works, or even seen the film adaptions, I could maybe see why this might be interesting.
Otherwise... not so much
 
One of my favorite films - and I'm not one that cares too much for unrealistic action - but I felt the much derided gun kata to be well presented and fit the tone/style of the movie quite well.

On the whole I found the ideas behind it made it better than the Matrix, the film to which it is often compared.
 
I highly enjoyed this movie, and accepted it for what it is. Christian Bale makes a good Cleric, and I gladly own this movie and keep it on the shelf with my top 20 DVDs.

J.
 
And from what I read, this movie was filmed about the same time as Matrix. So it probably can't be a ripoff.

Also, do you consider Brazil a ripoff of 1984 too? It's not a ripoff its a homage.
 
The idea of pharmacutically repressed society was more interesting than the action aspect, which amounts mostly to lots and lots of one-sided fights. Not sure why the resistance even bothered, they can't even injury the basic goons, let alone a cleric.

Except at the end when the establishment is effortlessly overthrown. That's what I remember anyway.
 
I absolutely love this movie. It did look like Farenheit 451/1984, but it was made and acted well and the fight scenes kicked all possible sorts of ass.
 
I quite enjoyed it. It's a fairly cool film. I know it rips from Fahrenheit 451, The Matrix, and 1984, but those are some of my favourite novels and movies ever made, so combining them was no bad thing, in my opinion. I didn't mind the Gun Kata thing, as I have also seen the Matrix probably 500 times! :) Well, maybe not THAT many...
 
Christian Bale is also so much better as an actor than Keanu Reeves. I always expect Reeves to say something like ,"Whoa, dude!"
 
I always have a soft spot for Equilibrium. Yeah, it's not the most original movie out there, nor is it the most intelligent, but I really liked the direction and Christian Bale, Emily Watson and Sean Bean (for what little of the film he's in) elevate the material.

Plus, it's a whole lot of fun, and Klaus Badelt's score is pretty energizing as well. For what it is, it's an entertaining film.
 
I can't really remember what this movie was about, but I remember liking it a lot when I saw it.
 
It's essentially a hodgepodge of every distopia ever written. Without bringing anything new to the table.
 
I thought it was awesome and a ton of fun. Way better than that matrix shite.
 
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