Aeon Flux

[John Q. Mayhem]

Well, I liked Equilibrium even though it was silly...I think Taye Diggs had a lot to do with that, the man oozes style. He was the Bandleader in Chicago, too. He rocks.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

Isn't she a little overdressed?

 

[Viking Bastard]

Why? Bad acting, bad plot, bad physics, lots of explosions. If I want explosions I will go watch fireworks - they have a better plot than that piece of garbage.

Great actors oozing badarseness! Classic sci-fi plot updated for new times, great stylished action with lots of Gun-fu!

It was a great action movie in a time that seems to have forgotten how to make 'em.

 

[Wayside]

Why? Bad acting, bad plot, bad physics, lots of explosions. If I want explosions I will go watch fireworks - they have a better plot than that piece of garbage.

I hatedhatedhatedhatedhated Equilibrium.

Nope. It was the amazing acting, awesome plot, anime physics, and of course the explosions. Hyperbole is a two-way street.

 

[Berandor]

Nope. It was the amazing acting, awesome plot, anime physics, and of course the explosions. Hyperbole is a two-way street.

And still it doesn't lead you anywhere

 

[Captain Tagon]

Why? Bad acting, bad plot, bad physics, lots of explosions. If I want explosions I will go watch fireworks - they have a better plot than that piece of garbage.

I hatedhatedhatedhatedhated Equilibrium.

The Auld Grump

Wow. One of my top ten movies ever. Seriously. Bale was awesome in it. One of the few films I can watch over and over up there with the origial Star Wars trilogy and Boondock Saints.

Oh, and I'm looking forward to Aeon Flux.

 

[takyris]

I'll back up the Grump on disliking Equilibrium. Its primary action coolness -- the gunkata stuff -- didn't fly with me, as they looked, well, stupid. The sword/stick-work was decent (thinking of the practice match with Diggs and the lovely fight with Diggs at the end of the movie), but anything involving gunplay just left me cold.

As far as the plot... stupid. Stupid stupid stupid. I'm sure apologists will come up with massively convoluted reasons that these things are brain-dead stupid, but off the top of my head, from my one viewing:

- The lack of emotion stuff didn't sell for me. People were showing emotions, but only in places, and unevenly. The drug represses emotion, but, well, it doesn't, evidently, so we don't really have much of a movie. If the writers of the movie really did have some kind of "Oh, anger is an emotion but pride is not" justification, that's something that the audience needed to hear.
- I could conceivably buy that people might buy the idea that crime and war come from emotions, but I don't believe that's actually the case. Crime and war come from people wanting the resources that other people already have. Take away emotions, and you've got the ants from "The Once and Future King" who come up with cold, logical rationalizations for attacking somebody else to take their stuff. This could well be happening in the world of the movie, but if you're going to try to sell this as your core concept, you need to address this issue and not force me to assume that it's happening somewhere.
- You have a mandatory drug that represses emotion but not a simple blood or urine test to tell whether people are using it as directed? If you're not doing the injections through government mandate, and the injections are mandatory, then, well, you need to come up with a blood test or something. Duh.
- In the future, all servers will be flatscreen and totally un-backed-up, so that a guy walking down a hallway shooting monitors will be able to disrupt the operations of at least a city and possibly an entire country.

People walking around with long black (gray?) trenchcoats calling themselves Grammaton Clerics and using rapid-reloading pistols and katanas... yeah, it's cool when you say it like that. But when you look at the inherent stupidity of the premise and execution, you end up with "Trenchcoats are cool, and finally, a movie has tried to justify the fact that I'm standing in one place just swiveling around and somehow I'm now impossible to shoot. Oh, and it's okay to be a repressed badass, as long as you're a repressed badass fighting for justice."

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I want to point out that I did not say that the actors were bad actors. What I said was bad acting. Christian Bales has been good in other roles, but Equilibrium brought to mind Shakespear's 'A story told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing'.

I saw nothing redeeming about the movie at all. I want more than action and explosions for my movies, I want a decent plot, or at least a good nostalgia boost. I did not like the characters, I did not like the weapons, and I did not like the movie.

The Auld Grump

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

Were there any explosions in Equilibrium?

 

[takyris]

When he shot the computer screens, which apparently had non-backed-up servers behind them, I recall some minor explosions. Nothing involving leaping away silhouetted with an explosion in the background, though, unless I've blocked it.