Review: Equlibrium
Posted: Sat Apr 04, 2009 11:54 am
This is a 'B' Japanese samurai / ninja drama set in an unfortunate American future. There are no Japanese in this movie to my knowledge, although I did see the occasional Asian. It has an Americanized Kung- Fu remake quality about it. It stars Batman and 009, AKA the bad guy from National Treasure. And Taye Diggs who hails from Rochester, that's worth half a point in itself.
Let me start with a plot summary...
A note on spoilers: I'm not too worried about giving anything away in this movie as the plot was as almost completely predictable as a James Bond flick.
In the post WWIII era, people kind of figured out that man's emotion is what causes wars. So the powers in charge The tetra-gam-o-tron something, with a flag that looks damn close to a swastika, (1984) have come up with some uber-drug that reduces emotion to an occasional annoyance. Emotion is against the law. Pretty things that spark emotion are against the law. Everything is dull and gray, with no ornamentation of any kind. Everyone stops and shoots up a daily dose of this drug at the same time when a public address buzzer sounds, or something.
It's a mandatory thing, see. Anyway there is also the RESISTANCE! These people do not use the drug and they spend their time FEELING EMOTION and hiding books, works of art and other pretty things that are outlawed by the government. Because of the RESISTANCE, the government has come up with this special corps (Jedi) of the police force. These special agents (Matrix) drive around in all white Chevrolets and have learned the ancient art of Kung-Fu gunfighting (The One) while being total emotionless assholes. This allows them, say, to enter a totally darkened room full of RESISTANCE fighters all armed with automatic weapons, and not be hit once while they slaughter everyone with only two (2) custom 45 magnums. They have also adopted the all black, high collar outfits from the Matrix. What a surprise...
A note on custom handguns:
These are special, magical guns that almost never run out of bullets (even though they have a full-auto selector switch) and never miss the intended targets. These guns are hidden up the sleeves of the agents but cannot be seen (even though they are the size of say, large .50 caliber Desert Eagles) until they pop out when needed. Oh yes, they still use regular brass cartridges instead of the caseless, ammo that would be needed in order for the sheer amount of gunfire to be possible. Did I mention the melee cleats that pop out of the gun butts and can be used to kill many guards wearing armored helmets? Well, they do that too. A good thing to have in a kung-fu movie.
These special agents are highly trained in the martial arts including sword fighting (Kill Bill) and spend more time hacking at each other and making veiled threats than they do anything else, except when leading squads of fully armed, gun cocking soldiers to hunt down RESISTANCE and burn the books and works of art (Fahrenheit 451).
A note on fully armed guards:
I swear, this movie was made for 15 year old males that have just hit puberty. The director/ writer has been taking his testosterone pills regularly. These fully armored, helmeted guards spend more time cocking their weapons than anything else. I want to watch the movie again just to count the times that guns are cocked.
"Are your men ready?"
"yes sir!"
eight soldiers violently cock their guns in the background.
"MMmm, whats for dinner?"
"There is no eating in this movie, stupid Batman."
The cook violently cocks his weapon.
You get the idea.
Anyway, the No.1 bad-ass Agent accidentally misses his daily dose of emotion zapping drug and starts HAVING FEELINGS. This is after he drills his owns his partner for reading a copy of Yeats' poems. (The gunshots from these magic pistols sound as loud as cannon fire in this movie) His new partner suspects agent No.1 of HAVING FEELINGS, which he is right to do, as Agent No.1 has been hiding his drug capsules behind his bathroom mirror. His son finds these later. The weirdest looking kid since 'The Omen'. The kid is even more of an asshole than his dad, until the end of the movie.
Agent No.1 ends up championing the RESISTANCE and swearing to overthrow the government by assassinating the grand chancellor, or whatever (Jedi). Agent No.1 is such a good Kung Fu gunfighter that no amount of fully armed guards can even come close to hitting him with automatic fire while he spins and whirls (matrix) and blows away everyone. There is the final confrontation, also known as a 'boss fight' by video gamers.
A note on boss fights:
In every good martial arts movie, there must be the final duel between the Humble Protagonist and the Evil Overlord/ Shogun. The evil overlord must be more skilled in fighting than all of his henchmen and guards. The H.P. must use every ounce of his energy but suffer no injuries.There must be random weapons available for each combatant to casually grab and use. Sometimes the E.O./S will have a secret weapons stash that he conveniently falls against and grabs out a sword or bo-staff or bazooka. In this case there were two convenient Samurai swords on a rack on the E.O./S's desk.
As soon as the boss fight starts we find the grand Chancellor is quite adept at close quarter martial arts/ gun fighting. Very surprising for a public figurehead. The Grand Chancellor / whatever finally gets killed and Taye Diggs gets his face chopped off. The RESISTANCE bombs start blowing up in the city and it's the French Revolution all over again.
You know the old expression, 'never bring a knife to a gunfight'? Well, that sums of most of the second half of the movie. How this one dude can kill, like, seventeen soldiers, all armed with machine guns, with only a sword is beyond me.
AArdvark rating: Two anthills out of five. Bring popcorn and your suspension of disbelief. Bring a lot of both.
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Let me start with a plot summary...
A note on spoilers: I'm not too worried about giving anything away in this movie as the plot was as almost completely predictable as a James Bond flick.
In the post WWIII era, people kind of figured out that man's emotion is what causes wars. So the powers in charge The tetra-gam-o-tron something, with a flag that looks damn close to a swastika, (1984) have come up with some uber-drug that reduces emotion to an occasional annoyance. Emotion is against the law. Pretty things that spark emotion are against the law. Everything is dull and gray, with no ornamentation of any kind. Everyone stops and shoots up a daily dose of this drug at the same time when a public address buzzer sounds, or something.
It's a mandatory thing, see. Anyway there is also the RESISTANCE! These people do not use the drug and they spend their time FEELING EMOTION and hiding books, works of art and other pretty things that are outlawed by the government. Because of the RESISTANCE, the government has come up with this special corps (Jedi) of the police force. These special agents (Matrix) drive around in all white Chevrolets and have learned the ancient art of Kung-Fu gunfighting (The One) while being total emotionless assholes. This allows them, say, to enter a totally darkened room full of RESISTANCE fighters all armed with automatic weapons, and not be hit once while they slaughter everyone with only two (2) custom 45 magnums. They have also adopted the all black, high collar outfits from the Matrix. What a surprise...
A note on custom handguns:
These are special, magical guns that almost never run out of bullets (even though they have a full-auto selector switch) and never miss the intended targets. These guns are hidden up the sleeves of the agents but cannot be seen (even though they are the size of say, large .50 caliber Desert Eagles) until they pop out when needed. Oh yes, they still use regular brass cartridges instead of the caseless, ammo that would be needed in order for the sheer amount of gunfire to be possible. Did I mention the melee cleats that pop out of the gun butts and can be used to kill many guards wearing armored helmets? Well, they do that too. A good thing to have in a kung-fu movie.
These special agents are highly trained in the martial arts including sword fighting (Kill Bill) and spend more time hacking at each other and making veiled threats than they do anything else, except when leading squads of fully armed, gun cocking soldiers to hunt down RESISTANCE and burn the books and works of art (Fahrenheit 451).
A note on fully armed guards:
I swear, this movie was made for 15 year old males that have just hit puberty. The director/ writer has been taking his testosterone pills regularly. These fully armored, helmeted guards spend more time cocking their weapons than anything else. I want to watch the movie again just to count the times that guns are cocked.
"Are your men ready?"
"yes sir!"
eight soldiers violently cock their guns in the background.
"MMmm, whats for dinner?"
"There is no eating in this movie, stupid Batman."
The cook violently cocks his weapon.
You get the idea.
Anyway, the No.1 bad-ass Agent accidentally misses his daily dose of emotion zapping drug and starts HAVING FEELINGS. This is after he drills his owns his partner for reading a copy of Yeats' poems. (The gunshots from these magic pistols sound as loud as cannon fire in this movie) His new partner suspects agent No.1 of HAVING FEELINGS, which he is right to do, as Agent No.1 has been hiding his drug capsules behind his bathroom mirror. His son finds these later. The weirdest looking kid since 'The Omen'. The kid is even more of an asshole than his dad, until the end of the movie.
Agent No.1 ends up championing the RESISTANCE and swearing to overthrow the government by assassinating the grand chancellor, or whatever (Jedi). Agent No.1 is such a good Kung Fu gunfighter that no amount of fully armed guards can even come close to hitting him with automatic fire while he spins and whirls (matrix) and blows away everyone. There is the final confrontation, also known as a 'boss fight' by video gamers.
A note on boss fights:
In every good martial arts movie, there must be the final duel between the Humble Protagonist and the Evil Overlord/ Shogun. The evil overlord must be more skilled in fighting than all of his henchmen and guards. The H.P. must use every ounce of his energy but suffer no injuries.There must be random weapons available for each combatant to casually grab and use. Sometimes the E.O./S will have a secret weapons stash that he conveniently falls against and grabs out a sword or bo-staff or bazooka. In this case there were two convenient Samurai swords on a rack on the E.O./S's desk.
As soon as the boss fight starts we find the grand Chancellor is quite adept at close quarter martial arts/ gun fighting. Very surprising for a public figurehead. The Grand Chancellor / whatever finally gets killed and Taye Diggs gets his face chopped off. The RESISTANCE bombs start blowing up in the city and it's the French Revolution all over again.
You know the old expression, 'never bring a knife to a gunfight'? Well, that sums of most of the second half of the movie. How this one dude can kill, like, seventeen soldiers, all armed with machine guns, with only a sword is beyond me.
AArdvark rating: Two anthills out of five. Bring popcorn and your suspension of disbelief. Bring a lot of both.
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