Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Audience Rating: R (Restricted) Binding: DVD EAN: 0786936181081 Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC Label: Dimension Manufacturer: Dimension Number Of Items: 1 Publisher: Dimension Region Code: 1 Release Date: 2003-05-13 Studio: Dimension Theatrical Release Date: 2002
Rating: - Great film
I hadn't even heard of this movie until I saw the V.A.S.T. video on YouTube for the movie. I was amazed and have to buy it.
The film is good, very different indeed...definitely a Christian Bale sort of movie. I highly recommend it - the gun fights are crazy! Not only that, but the story line is great too.
Rating: - An Entertaining Adrenaline Ride
OK, we've seen this type of movie before. The oppressive future governments ruling with violence and without remorse fighting against rebels wanting to be free. Equilibrium does this style of movie so much better. How? I hear you ask. With the help of Christian Bale. My review will be in three different stages. They are the story, the characters (or character) and the review which is just my opinion on the whole thing.
The Story: In the beginning of the 21st century, World War Three ravages the Earth and almost obliterates mankind. The few survivors realise that a fourth world war would mean the end of mankind once and for all. The world is taken over by "The Father" and his Tetragrammaton government. The father believes that the cause for WW3 was human feeling and in order to prevent that it must be eradicated. They have created "prozium" which is a medication that prevents feeling. But they must also locate and destroy every piece of art, music and other such items that would cause a human to feel. John Preston is a high ranking Grammaton Cleric and is on the front line when bringing "sense offenders" to justice. The only problem is that one day when accidentally smashing one of his prozium injections, he starts to feel. Feeling is the only thing that makes us human and Preston seeks to destroy the government that is destroying basic humanity.
The Character: John Preston is played by Christian Bale, and I must say the character is portrayed superbly. John Preston is a man who has no emotion and is dedicated to the cause of the Grammaton. He's so dedicated that he even allowed his wife to be executed for being a "sense offender." Preston also executed his partner and friend for being a "sense offender." This goes to show you the ruthlessness of Preston when he believes in his cause. The interesting part of him, however, is when he goes through the transformation of being completely emotionless to feeling things for the very first time.
He begins to dream of his wife, he begins to seek out art and music in the pursuit of emotional stimulation. Seeing him develop and seeing Bale pull it off is what makes this film tremendous.
Rating: - An Amusing Mixture of Styles and Stories
One of the previous reviewers wonders how this got by him (and by a lot of us). Box Office Mojo says that the film's widest release was 301 theaters, and that it took in about $5.4 million world-wide, so it didn't get a lot of exposure. I doubt that it returned the investiment either (though IMDB trivia says otherwise).
This is a workmanlike film, with everybody involved giving it their best shot (with the exception of the music which sounds to me like bits left over from 1996's Broken Arrow). The script is a genetic stew of chunks of The Matrix, 1984, Blade Runner, Fist of the North Star, and a parade of B and C films where the hero starts out as one of the trusted bad guys and gradually turns to the Resistance or the Revolution or a sexy Replicant, maybe.
Apparently, World War III erupted early in the 21st century. This film was released in February, 2003, according to IMDB, so I guess there's still time for things to happen in the early 21st century. Think 'Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome' where the MC guy says '...killing got to warring, and that was almost the end of us all.' In this world vision, negative emotion is deemed the plague that must be eliminated. The survivors all take 'Prozium' which suppresses emtion both negative and positive. As the man from Missouri said, 'That's a tough cob.' Bale is John Preston,a Cleric, one of the quasi-religious police who ferret out and take down people who insist on having feelings, which seem to be associated with old paintings and rooms full of 20th century bric-a-brac. His first partner (Sean Bean) goes over to the light side early on (think Agent D from 'Men in Black'), and Preston winds up with a new partner, the openly devious and suspicious Brandt (Taye Diggs). Much action ensues, as Preston stops taking his Prozium (didn't Richard Corben do a graphic story where everyone took a brain pill and a bod pill?).
If you're a devotee of these post-apocalytic action things, you will probably find this film interesting. There are some well-stage fight scenes, particularly toward the end as Preston fights someone who has had the same training as himself. Equilibrium is not going to make you forget The Matrix, though, certainly not the first of the trilogy (Matrix II and III are forgetable without any outside help).
If you've read Robert Heinlein's "If This Goes On--" (aka Revolt in 2100), Equilibrium will seem very familiar to you. Most of the forward momentum in this film is quite predictable, but I have to admit I wound up rooting for the 'sense offenders' rather than the anti-feeling Clerics (though the film cheats, allowing the supposed cold-natured anti-feelers to get happy, upset and even angry).
Christian Bale and Taye Diggs are more than serviceable, and look for a nice performance by Angus MacFadyen (Robert the Bruce from Braveheart). Plus, I'm still getting over Emily Watson's eyes!
If it sounds like I'm trying to have it both ways, I am. It's really a forgettable film for the general audience, but for sci-fi devotees it should not be missed.
Rating: - GUN-KATA!!!
I do not know how I missed this movie, talk about flying in under the radar. It is very well done with oustanding visuals and some great acting by Christian Bale. For those that keep referring to this film as a Matrix rip off it needs to stop. If everyone walking around in trench coats is considered Matrix like then there are quite a few movies to add to the list.
The story starts full speed with the movie that plagues the people of their emotions a brainwash if you will coupled with a drug taken periodically to tranquilize you emotions. Then moves quickly to the task force that disposes of "sense offenders", basically people that have feeings. The society the task force is trying to preserve is one of no emotion. This no emotion society is supposed to be a cure for anger, hatred, grief, sadness, sorrow etc. all the thing that caused the WWIII that these people survived. Through the processing(killing) of the sense offenders you get to see a very unique gun visual. The technique is called "gun-kata" and it is a fighting style that maximizes movement and angles to interpret your assailants moves as well as giving optimum angle for your attack to inflict the most possible damage. See it once and you will definitely think that is the coolest thing ever. After the awe factor of "gun-kata" wears off our lead Bale forgets to take some of his tranquilizer and soon starts feeling emotion again. He continues down this path of feeling and soon leads a revolution. I won't throw in spoilers because I want everyone to see the film and find out the outcome.
Outstanding movie, perfect fit for Bale and full of action with a mind provoking story line as well. Highly recommended for fans of darker sci fi settings and anyone who likes John Woo action films, because it is full of two pistol firing mayhem. A must see for Bale fans he is phenomenal in this performance.
Rating: - Overlooked great film
I am so glad I decided to take heed to all the 5 star ratings for this film I had never even heard of before and go ahead and rent it. This was a truly fantastic action movie. Bale is a very good actor and I like the projects he selects. I wish this film had gotten more notice. I would like to see more films like this come out, action sci-fi with a message about humanity. Don't dumb it down, producers. This is the way to go, if only it can be better promoted so people find out just how great such movies really are.
Before Barack Obama's surprise appearance, a tag team of Democrats, including Bill Clinton, piles on John McCain. And Joe Biden, Rove-style, goes right for McCain's supposed strength.
This is text no. 7 in a series on Java Reflection. This text covers how to access annotations of classes, methods, parameters and fields at runtime using Java Reflection. Accessing annotations at runtime via reflection is a feature often used by various frameworks, like persistence frameworks, dependency injection frameworks etc.
- Great film
- An Amusing Mixture of Styles and Stories