Equilibrium

[elgaz]

I did a search but was surprised there were no results for this, so I presume there hasn't been a thread on it before.

Anyone else a big fan of this film? I have it in my DVD collection and watched it again the other night. It's one of those films which doesn't really do anything absolutely astonishing, didn't have a massive budget, and wasn't a huge hit critically - a bit like Predator - but nonetheless, it's got a certain something that always takes me back to it.

Christian Bale is pretty much perfect for the role of John Preston, and his slow ascent from an emotionless government agent, to someone who discovers his emotions and finds himself in a position where he can overthrow the regime is very convincing. The scene where he listens to music and it touches his soul for the first time is magnificent.

Decent supporting cast too, and the 'gunkata' was an interesting technique considering a lot of films in the early '00s were still imitating bullet time and martial arts techniques used in the Matrix.

My only gripe would be that the reveal of the villain was not really the shocker it's intended to be, but nonetheless the film still stands up well.

 

[Monsieur Xavier]

I am not a big fan but I enjoyed it, for a small budget movie it was well done, the cast was fine ( Bale + Sean Bean ) and the gunkata awesome.
The story reminded me a bit of 1984 and Brave New World.
Too bad it was released around the same time frame than Matrix which totaly overshadowed it. ( I am not sure about the use of "overshadow" in the context of the sentence ).

 

[GhostPoet]

I really enjoyed it. Even more so than The Matrix.

 

[redhawk23]

Movie has one of the more ridiculously high on screen body counts.

Some complain that it's derivitive, and it certainly does pull from a number of sources but it uses it's influences well.

I think the fight scenes are very well edited which is a lot more than can be said for a lot of other films.

 

[Fenrir]

Pretentious, poorly-written and with a downright stupid premise. God I hate this film, even with Bale genuinely trying to bring some substance into what is clearly something that was doomed to fail from the start.

 

[Rowsdower!]

I used to love this movie but I tried watching it again recently after all these years and I have to say that it hasn't aged well. The budget wasn't very big and if that wasn't painfully obvious back when it came out, it certainly is now. However, the one thing that saves it from mediocrity is Bale, who turns in one of his finest performances. Based on that alone, I would still recommend this movie to anyone that hasn't seen it. Angus McFayden and Emily Watson also turn out good performances, although Taye Diggs makes a pretty unthreatening antagonist.

 

[Spider-Who?]

Pretentious, poorly-written and with a downright stupid premise. God I hate this film, even with Bale genuinely trying to bring some substance into what is clearly something that was doomed to fail from the start.

It's an Orwellian dystopian thriller. It borrows heavily from 1984, which is a fantastic book. Personally, I find the movies story no more stupid and pretentious than any other film in it's genre. At least this one has a message.

I enjoyed the film a lot. I'm a musician and artist so those aspects meant a lot to me. First time I watched it, I was high off my rocker, so the music scene was outstanding, lol. I watched it again a few years ago and still found it highly enjoyable.

 

[#1Batmanfan]

love this movie! havent seen it in years, im going to have to pop it in!

 

[Casius--J]

Love this movie, it was so awesome watching this at the cinema. I rushed out and ordered this on dvd from canada so I could get it before the UK release.

 

[Teelie]

I liked it. It was mainly an action film that tried throwing in more substance than it could handle but it didn't totally flop. If you are looking for deep meaning in this kind of film you won't find it. To me it bridges the gap between a Michael Bay film and something with a story.

 

[Rac]

I saw it couple of times between 2005-2006. Really liked it back then. Dunno how I would react to it now.

 

[SHADOWBAT69]

I was a fan of this before the Bale explosion, when everyone was jumping on everything he was in.

 

[BizarroAids]

I remember seeing this in the theater and it was the only place in town showing it. I like Kurt Wimmer and the movies he writes, this was unique and has one of my favorite actors in it; Sean Bean.

The great thing about what Wimmer did is not make these people into just plain zombies. It's like he said in the "Making Of" feature it takes away the extreme highs and lows. Gun Kata was something we had never seen before on film and it was loosely done in another movie and quickly on a hit tv show.

I can still watch this movie once a month and enjoy it. The dog scene still gets me every time.

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

I love the message (the imporatance of art and emotion) and the action scenes were alot of fun.

Too bad it came out 6 months after The Matrix which was 100 times bigger.

 

[BestGirl]

I remember that the dialogue was hilariously pretentious. There was some line about dreams that a couple characters repeated that was just awful.

 

[Darkness Falls]

loved this movie since i first saw it

[YT]-1fIe80SVSo[/YT]

 

[Midnyte_Sun]

I liked their style of Gun-Fu. Ultraviolet on the other hand....

 

[superhero]

irented it on neetlfix couple months ago.i liked it a lot ican't seem to find it out on dvd i looked sevral time at used booked stores.

 

[Punisher Rising]

Saw this a few years back on cable and remember liking it a lot.

 

[Gto250]

So what exactly happened with this movie ?
I think it had a very limited release.. If I remember well it didn't even came out here (France)

I really liked the movie, C.Bale and Sean Bean were awesome, the gunfight was a good idea.
So it may not be a masterpiece but still a very enjoyable movie.

 

[BizarroAids]

I love the message (the imporatance of art and emotion) and the action scenes were alot of fun.

Too bad it came out 6 months after The Matrix which was 100 times bigger.

I remember at first people thinking it was a Matrix rip-off. but on the box and in many reviews it was pretty much "Forget the Matrix; this movie will blow you away."

 

[Max J Power]

It's OK, but didn't hold up that well for me on multiple viewings. I still think the action sequences are impressive for something so low-budget, but the gun-kata stuff is kind of dumb. The way the movie portrayed the martial arts/gun mix seemed really impractical; I felt like the henchman with swords should have been able to easily defeat it. And the dystopian society wasn't really different enough from 1984, Brave New World and Fahrenheit 451 to make it seem unique.

 

[Mace Bloodstone]

 

[elgaz]

Channel hopping tonight and this had just started so ended up watching the whole thing again for first time in a few years. Still enjoyable, it’s aged a bit and action movies have certainly moved on - but Bale’s performance holds it together.