Grappling with everything that irked me about this movie
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Equilibrium
otr91 — 11 years ago(November 09, 2014 08:26 AM)
I didn't have high expectations about the movie, but then I thought I'd give it a try after seeing the high rating on IMDB. I am baffled the rating is so high.
I am definitely someone who doesn't like to analyse movies too much because the main purpose of a movie is to entertain, and I am happy to be entertained. However, several things peeved me:- The premise: having people with no emotions makes no sense, physically or logically. Logically, why would anyone in their right mind want to remove emotions? Yeah, they say that war has ravaged the world, but does that really mean the whole population of Libria just said "yeah, makes sense if we remove emotion"? Or I suppose the people in charge made that decision, but it just makes no sense to get rid of feeling, which is pretty much the whole point of life. May as well say that a pen makes ink stains so we should stop using pens.
Physically it makes no sense either, like people in other posts have said: if there's no emotion, why do characters smile during the film? Why would the son tell his sister to stop stirring her cereal, because annoyance is an emotion? Why would Preston feel a bond with Sean Bean to care about whether the state 'go easy' on him? (the state never go easy on Sean Bean, lol) You wouldn't feel ambition, or arrogance, or loyalty surely..? People without emotions just can't exist
COUNTER: perhaps, as some people have pointed out, emotions aren't removed but simply toned down so they don't feel the highs and lows - The burning: why would people accept the incredible pain of being burned alive when they could just fight/run away and have a quick death by getting shot instead? Specifically talking about Emily Watson's character here (Mary)
- The dog: why does it randomly appear in the classroom (exam room?) with the kids at the end? So you can't have emotion, but you can bring pets into class?
- Bad guys: why are all the bad guys (working for the state) so bad at shooting? Surely one of them could kill Preston? I s'pose this applies to a lot of films, but it seemed especially unrealistic here because Preston is still just a man (so far as we know) and he got through a hell of a lot of guys
- The twist: so Brandt/DuPont knew Preston was feeling and let him contact the underground and knew Preston would 'arrest' the resistance leaders and ask for an audience with Father? Why didn't Brandt or someone else just kill Preston when they had the underground leaders? Why bother with the charade of bringing Preston to Father? Didn't that just endanger all of the inner guards (inc. Father) and expose them to Preston's tour-de-force? (and why didn't they know Preston was more than capable of easily kicking everyone's ass?)
- Location of the underground: so finding the underground network was as easy as breaking down a wall in a library somewhere? Maybe I didn't pay attention during this part
Maybe I am being unfair, but I thought this movie was really poor. Also, 'great acting?' Really? How hard is it to play people without emotions? Acting was sufficient and no more. One last thing, The Matrix was so so much better than this in every way: great characters, very well explained, mind-boggling, ground-breaking action (although one thing I haven't criticised in Equilibrium is the action, which at least was pretty cool I thought)
I feel very generous giving this 6/10
- The premise: having people with no emotions makes no sense, physically or logically. Logically, why would anyone in their right mind want to remove emotions? Yeah, they say that war has ravaged the world, but does that really mean the whole population of Libria just said "yeah, makes sense if we remove emotion"? Or I suppose the people in charge made that decision, but it just makes no sense to get rid of feeling, which is pretty much the whole point of life. May as well say that a pen makes ink stains so we should stop using pens.
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MtnMan13 — 11 years ago(February 17, 2015 06:49 AM)
Some other thoughts:
Why wasn't Preston immediately suspicious of his new partner who frequently smiled? That was a dead give away that the guy could feel emotion.
As for the resistence, if they had bombs planted all over the city to take down the factories and distribution centers, why did they have to wait until "Father" was dead before setting them off?
And speaking of the resistence, how many thousands of innocent people did they murder when their bombs went off and they started storming through the city randomly firing their machine guns? And why did Preston smile at the carnage? I wasn't sure if that was supposed to be a happy ending or a cynical one since the resistence, by their actions, proved "Father" right, that humans with emotions were murderous barbarians. -
xMCGRUBERx — 10 years ago(November 07, 2015 05:52 AM)
Theres an awful lot of nitpicky stuff here for someone who doesnt over-evaluate, lol. I wont probably be able to anwser all but atleast a few to help clear things up, i hope.
- it wasnt just an overnight thing introducing the emotion blocking pill. You acknowledged some about the wars and how violent society had become, but maybe not to the extent they were trying to convey . The pill sounded like a necessity cause the world was on the brink of self destruction.
The boy and his sister and the cereal.. Perhaps you were tuning in and out, because this and a few others u posted i felt were properly explained in the movie. The boy could be annoyed, because his WASNT on the pill. Towards the end, the boy said that quit taking the stuff after Prestons wife/ boys mother had was killed. At the time of the "stop playing with your cereal" scene this wasnt known yet, but in retrospect that would easily explain why he was annoyed, he wasnt on the medicine. Thats actually neat cause i never picked up on his being "annoyed" by it, more thought of it as he was reprimanding his sister to fall by in line kind of thing.
2).(using your example) she would have just been beaten and than burned alive. I strongly think your over-estimating emily blunts fighting capabilities against heavily armored and armed men. What im saying is, even if she had the same gung-ho spirit as you, in reality she would of just been beaten when she tried something. - "the dog at the end". Goodness gracious. I have to ask Were u even paying attention at all? Ill recap for you. The good guys won and people started to feel again. Take seeing the dog at the end as a sign that the world is on the rebound and feeling again. Something that was shown and expressed very clearly.
- their wasnt alot of clerics. Preston was the highest ranking cleric. Preston was like a 4* general of the father, yet it wasn't until the very end he was granted an audience with his holiness. Not even his best guy got to meet him, his security would he scarce in general. Just some throwaway guards.
Now, they explained the "gun kata" in the movie of how the combat works. The whole point of it is to be elusive and manuever in such a way to avoid being shot using statisical data and analysis. Thats the reason why. Again, im slightly baffled u didnt catch that. It was explained well in the movie. Granted, its unrealistic and far-fetched but made for some really cool scenes. 99% of the people he killed werent clerics. Their werent trained to do that. They were dumb throwaway guards not trained in gun kata. All the great things about this movies action revolve around this. If a common foot soldier could shoot a cleric that would be the equivalent of a stormtrooper shooting a jedi. But thats the movie, Take it or leave it.
5). They didnt know for sure yet. I think they wanted to be sure, being the guy is such a legacy and the poster child for the whole organization. They had to be sure taye diggs story checked out as well. - Finding underground was never easy for them. They were hiding right under their nose, hidden. The last place anyone suspected to find them.
Personally, i enjoyed this better than the matrix which is a marvel of a movie but also long and even more far fetched. There is alot of plot holes in those as well(see their boards). I think the acting took more credit your giving it. Of course playing practically emotionless people wouldnt take alot of range or skill, but to pull it off in such a fashion was impressive. I also thought because of this, the people that were sense offending stood out more. Preston starting to feel, shaking off the side effects, emily blunt, sean bean. Their wasnt alot of this, but it made those characters more engaging to me. I also dont think the matrix fight scenes were as cool as these. The cinematography of it, the style. Matrix had alot of mind blowing flashing CGI fights, even iconic, no doubt. But it didnt have as cool of a style or choreography as equilibrium.
Hope this answers some stuff. I would give it a second viewing
- it wasnt just an overnight thing introducing the emotion blocking pill. You acknowledged some about the wars and how violent society had become, but maybe not to the extent they were trying to convey . The pill sounded like a necessity cause the world was on the brink of self destruction.