RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Media Equilibrium

I don't know if many of you have heard of this one, but it's 1 or 2 years old and I hadnt seen it until recently. It stars Christian Bale, Taye Diggs and Sean Bean. It's a post WWIII era where anti-emotion drugs are enforced upon the people so that there is no crime or war. All forms of creative thinking are illegal and art and music are contraband.

I think this movie went straight to video, but if it hit the theaters, I missed it. I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed it. I love it when I give a film that I've never heard of before and end up with a surprise treat. It has 2000 style action elements but has subversiveness and thought provoking story elements much like Gattaca. It's got action, heart, science-fiction, A-List actors and good direction. Give it a shot if youre bored and want a cool flick.

Waiting for Jaburg countdown.......
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It was out in theatres.

Storywise, it's a watered down Brave New World, but the action scenes are fantastic. Very stylish, new age sets and costumes. Fun flick.

The final fight scene where Bale goes beserk was ridiculous.

Yup, was in theaters. Very breifly. Great movie. Like it alot.

I welcome the Jaburg countdown. I wasnt about to look through pages of internet forums before posting a meadering thought about a goddamn dvd.

Well glad peeps here dug it at least.

Yeah, good movie. The son was fucking creepy. The gun kata thing was very crazy, but they explained it. My philosophy is if they give enough effort to explain something as being fact with psuedo science, then I'll accept it based on how they present it no matter how strange it might be.

I saw Ebert and Roeper review this movie. They said it was really good but they were afraid that people were going to pass it off as a Matrix rip-off.

This thread has been rated EC-10

Thats it. Tomorrow I steal all those fuckers screen caps put them somewhere I can actully use them.

That's what I passed it off as when I saw it on the video shelves (Matrix rip-off). Seriously, look at the cover. And I believe the phrase on the back was "What is the Equilibrium?" and the website was "www.entertheequilibruim.com".

I shit thee not.

I went out and got my own copy after I got it from Netflix.

My woman liked it and she's not keen on action films.

Chewy's been recomending this film for me. I can't wait to rent it. I'll probably wait until I'm back in Gainesville, so my roommate can watch it with me. We both this Bale is hot and Bean has a sexy voice.

Well I have to convince her somehow!

And I didn't like Matrix. Sorry. It just didn't excite me. A cute idea...but...that's about it. I've read about half of Brave New World, and the concept is very interesting, but it's just dragging right now.

However, I'm a BIG fan of Gattaca and novels like 1984 and F541. So if this movie blends material like that with the elements of Brave New World that I liked, I will in all likelyhood enjoy the film.

Plus, I mean, Christian Bale and Sean Bean are in it. That's a pretty darn good reason to see anything.

It's like 1984 if Winston was a serious badass.

Well shit, I'm gonna love this movie.

That's the avatar of my dreams!

Not even close to similar, but another fave of mine:

Wasn't there a really violent one like that involving a guy with a sword killing girlscouts or something?

Actually, it was Japanese schoolgirls...

Ah, there it is.

Upon first watching Equilibrium, I was so intruigued by the fact that it was a cross between the three main dystopian future titles I've read (1984, Brave New World, and F451) that I made a list of all the similarities it had with the books.

...I'm such a nerd...

Okay...just saw it with Stephanie last night. I bought the DVD with a gift card, and I don't regret it. Here's a snippet of some of our comments last night, mainly for laughes.

(Bale and Bean step out of the car.)

S: Mhhh...Christian Bale...oh snap there's Bean!
J: With good hair for once. No more lookin' like Bono.
S: And he's not a terrorist.
J: Mhhh...Bale...

(The first shooting scene.)
S: The screen's blank. Is my DVD player broken?
J: But I can still here stuff -- oh crap they're shooting.
J and S: Two minutes of 'Holy Cow' 'Look at what he just did!' 'Rewind!'

(They are about to shoot the dogs.)
S: Jackie, why are we watching this? IF THEY KILL THE PUPPY I'M GOING TO HATE THIS MOVIE!
J: Jeez, woman!

(Puppy is in the trunk.)
S: He's gonna save the puppy. I LOVE THIS MOVIE!

Yeah, this movie is one of my favorites. Some might call it watered-down from some dsytopian novels, but really, I just saw it as a newer version of what people were writing about fifty years ago. I mean, we as a society are always popping pills, be it for depression, ADD, or erectile dysfunction. The pill in this movie is just another prescription.

Everyone's acting was awesome. Bale was great, and I really look forward to seeing him in the new Batman movie. The action scenes were excellent, but I really enjoyed that finale scene where he's grinning. Bean, having a very short role, was almost straight out of F451. Dang that good. Plus, as my roommate pointed out, we got to see him shirtless. I had to remind her that he was dead in the scene, so I don't think it counts. Diggs played quite the bastard, I think everyone watching the film was glad to see him get it.

My ONLY complaint about the film was that some of the words introducted to the film were not reinforced well enough for my to remember them. And really, if that's the worse complaint a movie gets, it's still highly rated.

And whoever did the marketing on this movie should be fired. I do not remember any commercials or movie trailers or newspaper ads for this movie. I don't even remember if I was living in Tampa or in Gainesville when it was released. No one I know has heard of this movie. Why? It's a good movie, dang it.

Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams.

Yeah I didnt see it until I sat down bored with a couple buddies and saw it on their on demand thing. After watching it I ran out and got the widescreen dvd version.

About the drugs, what I enjoyed was the irony that their drug was enforced and it was UNlawful to not take it and that the primary prohibited drug was the high people got from natural human emotion.

By the way, I managed to watch part of the film version of Fahrenheit 451 last weekend, hoping it would be as good as the book.

Um, no way. I couldn't even sit down and watch the whole thing. I turned it off halfway through. Now, I don't think everything make in the 60s was crap, but this was one of those cases. Weird as it seems, Equilibrium was a far better remake of the novel than 1966 version. Props for Bale and Bean for actually getting the message across with far less effort than that Austrian guy from the 60s version.

That being said, I can't wait for the remake that Frank Darabont (The Green Mile) is working on. Hopefully, he'll get people that at least sound American. I can't get over Guy Montag sounding like Arnold.

I caught F451 on tv a little bit ago on Warner Classic Movies. It was a snooze fest.

I would have rather have watched fishing.

I watched like thirty five minutes not one person was shot.

Mind the uniform Cleric, I plan to be wearing it for a long time.

Equilibrium is just Fahrenheit 451 for the ADD generation.

Thank you. Seriously.

And X-Men is really just Roots Vol. 1-5. People are allowed to update old ideas.

I saw it more like a 'tribute' to the older detopian stuff than dumbed-down for a modern audience.

And I'll give them credit for having a good ending. 1984 had a good, brutal ending, but it didn't really show people how to beat the system. Obviously, Orwell's message was 'don't create that sort of a world in the first place'. I wouldn't say a downbeat ending was better/worse/the same as an upbeat ending, but it was nice that Equilibrium did something different.

I thought the ending, while very entertaining, was the worst part of the movie.

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He just killed everyone, quite easily, as if he could have done it at any point in time. Twenty or thirty guards wasn't a challenge? Shit, man, then why didn't you bother saving whatsherface from being fried? At least in the Matrix ending when Keanu goes nuts and beats the badguys, there was an epiphanic moment. In Equilibrium, he just got up and suddenly decided he'd been half-assing it when he was just killing two or three guys at a time earlier.

Honestly, I'm not really trying to bash the movie. I was able to look past most of that, and enjoy it for what it was. Good, fun, action movie, with plenty of the old ultra-violence.

I was refering more to the underground movement destroying the drug plants. But I see what you mean.