{"id":1772,"date":"2017-11-13T21:50:03","date_gmt":"2017-11-14T02:50:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/?p=1772"},"modified":"2017-11-13T22:23:25","modified_gmt":"2017-11-14T03:23:25","slug":"equilibrium-a-science-fiction-movie-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2017\/11\/13\/equilibrium-a-science-fiction-movie-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Equilibrium \u2013 A Science Fiction Movie Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

I work with this young guy, he\u2019s fresh out of college, maybe twenty-three-years old.\u00a0 He\u2019s an engineering graduate and is well read and has a good classical grounding in literature and history.\u00a0 Good kid.\u00a0 Sometimes we talk about popular culture stuff.\u00a0 I can remember talking with him about the Matrix and saying there\u2019s good and bad about it.\u00a0 I think I said it would have been better if Reeves weren\u2019t the lead.\u00a0 And I think that\u2019s when he recommended \u201cEquilibrium.\u201d\u00a0 Now I think I know what he was getting at.<\/p>\n

So, Equilibrium is set in a dystopian future after World War III has devastated humanity.\u00a0 Mankind has decided that rather than chance another war, the root cause of war must be abolished.\u00a0 If I remember the chain of logic is war is caused by hate.\u00a0 Hate is an emotion.\u00a0 Therefore, eliminate emotion, eliminate war.\u00a0 So everyday every man woman and child self-inject with some kind of emotion deadening drug.\u00a0 And of course, it doesn\u2019t just eliminate hate and anger.\u00a0 Love and happiness are extinguished too.\u00a0 Brilliant.\u00a0 Of course, it\u2019s not explained why exactly they still want to live but whatever.<\/p>\n

So just in case this premise isn\u2019t bizarre enough, this society also has some kind of priest-like caste of ninja police whose job it is to hunt down and splatter anyone who doesn\u2019t take his no-feelum medicine.\u00a0 And of course, the Ubermensch of ninjas and protagonist of the movie is Christian Bale.\u00a0 He is the most skilled proponent of the gun kata.\u00a0 This stylized dance-like routine allows him to (somehow) avoid the bullets of apparently any number of gun toting opponents while literally mowing them down like grass. \u00a0The other mission of these holy stormtroopers is to root out any remaining pre-war artifacts that have emotional content.\u00a0 And once located, apply a flamethrower to these emotional touchstones.\u00a0 So, for instance, during one of Bale’s raids he somehow intuits that under a floor is the actual Mona Lisa.\u00a0 He gives the order and the barbecue crew incinerates Leonardo\u2019s mischievous lady.\u00a0 So, what\u2019s the problem?\u00a0 It turns out there\u2019s a resistance!\u00a0 And it turns out Bale is not as emotionlessly happy as he could be.\u00a0 It seems his wife unbeknownst to him was a secret feeler.\u00a0 When she\u2019s dragged away to be incinerated it seems to have left a mark.\u00a0 And we\u2019re off.\u00a0 The rest of the movie is Bale going from emotionless executioner of the innocent to a guy who can\u2019t let a puppy dog get shot.<\/p>\n

Now let\u2019s bring it back to my young co-worker who recommended this movie based on a comment about the Matrix.\u00a0 Well, stylistically this movie is extremely dependent on the Matrix template.\u00a0 Guns and swords abound and the wire work and fight scenes are very Matrix-esque.\u00a0 Even Bale\u2019s priestly cassock is like Neo\u2019s garb in the second and third movies.\u00a0 The emotionless police a level below the ninjas are close to the Matrix agents in appearance and behavior.\u00a0 The Resistance is equivalent to Zion in the Matrix.\u00a0 Without a doubt this movie is a reaction to the success of the Matrix.\u00a0 But interestingly the dystopia is a completely different science fiction catastrophe from the AI revolution and human battery future of the Matrix.\u00a0 What they share is humans fighting to be allowed to be actual humans.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the verdict?\u00a0 Well, it\u2019s derivative in a number of ways but it is well done and Christian Bale is a slightly better actor than Keanu Reeves and there is the puppy dog, so there is that.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 I\u2019m not a big Matrix fan.\u00a0 So maybe I\u2019m biased.\u00a0 But I can\u2019t say I recommend it unreservedly.\u00a0 I will say if you really liked the Matrix you should give this a try.\u00a0 It has all kinds of hyperkinetic gun and sword battles.\u00a0 So, if that\u2019s a big plus for you it\u2019s definitely something to look at.\u00a0 That\u2019s where I\u2019ll leave this one.<\/p>\n

Since my readers don’t always stop by every day I figured I’d paste this poll on each post for a while to see what folks call themselves.\u00a0 This is the post the poll came from\u00a0\u00a0Who Are We?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

… And that got me thinking. Who are the people who read my blog?\u00a0 I thought it might be fun to see what the cross-section looked like.\u00a0 If you feel like saying what you believe in, feel free to leave a comment and\/or pick a label from the poll below.\u00a0 I think it might be interesting.<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[Total_Soft_Poll id=”6″]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I work with this young guy, he\u2019s fresh out of college, maybe twenty-three-years old.\u00a0 He\u2019s an engineering graduate and is well read and has a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[239,237,4,243],"tags":[547,406,43,38,44,265,548],"class_list":["post-1772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","category-reviews","category-sff","category-sff-movie-reviews","tag-christian-bale","tag-keanu-reeves","tag-movie-review","tag-review","tag-sci-fi","tag-science-fiction","tag-the-matrix"],"yoast_head":"\nEquilibrium \u2013 A Science Fiction Movie Review - Orion's Cold Fire<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2017\/11\/13\/equilibrium-a-science-fiction-movie-review\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Equilibrium \u2013 A Science Fiction Movie Review - 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