Burn the Mona Lisa, because Equilibrium is the Greatest Movie EVER!
Click on the movie poster or the title above to download our review of the film, featuring Sean “Hollywood” Hunting.
Review in a Nutshell: Although it fails to strike the proper balance between brainy science fiction and dumb action movie, Equilibrium is a movie that succeeds despite itself, mostly on the strengths of Christian Bale’s performance and the action scenes featuring gun-kata, the improbably entertaining fictional martial art of wielding firearms.
This movie contains:
Sean Bean, Offender of Senses.
ACTING.
“Hey, not my face. I need that.”
The Greatest Movie EVER! Podcast 
This movie is real. This movie is 100% legit. I am moved by this movie and identify with everyone. The same is true for Daybreakers. That’s one Clarissa and I thought was rad, but Gerald thought totally sucked. That must be the reason why I was sent the erotic slash fiction and not you. That, or it’s because this podcast lacks the Explicit tag and therefore cannot feature a dramatic interpretive reading.
As repeatedly stated in this recording, the fact that Paul just cannot stop thinking about Ultraviolet has negatively clouded his perception of the grandiosity of Equilibrium. For I think about Equilibrium with the frequency that Paul thinks about Ultraviolet. Mainly because I want to do the gun-kata (and have the Prozium). Ultraviolet being a wreck after the fact does not affect this. The Wimmer just used up all of his power on this movie. That’s undoubtedly why I own the theatrical movie poster of this movie, which as usual is a whole lot better than what got used for the DVD cover.
As to the points brought up in this episode, I make no exaggeration when I say that people have literally been arguing over every nitpick detail of this movie for years and years, poring over it frame-by-frame. For some reason I read a lot of these talks. Below are common responses to the points brought up. Some (all?) of it is even lifted from the movie’s TWO commentary tracks:
–it HAD to be the Mona Lisa because it’s pretty much the only painting that everybody has heard of AND will agree “that is art”
–“Mister” Taye Diggs smiling all the time despite supposedly lacking the capacity for higher emotion is acceptable when you consider the context and manner in which he’s doing so; it’s a completely false and insincere gesture with nothing behind it
–there are TWO gun switches; the one we’re given the flashback to and one that happens earlier, as they’re getting out of the car. The guns are not the subject of the car shot, but given that two pistols were required for the shooting it’s entirely plausible that those actually would be the trace results. Regardless, everybody ordering and doing the trace is in on it anyway
As for The Architect, that is the greatest character in the Matrix trilogy. I want that guy in other mainstream blockbuster movies, AS The Architect.
I wasn’t so much thinking of the smiling as the “I’m not feeling! This is a mistake!” bit. But as you mention, he’s in on the conspiracy by that point, so Diggs may also be sense-offending.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who appreciates The Architect. They should team him up with William Fichtner as The Accountant and make a buddy road movie.
Okay, Paul – this is one we have never seen, so I’m going to have to rely on your podcast to decide if it’s worth finding….
I think part of what makes this movie so dumb in its scifi half is that harsh binary — there’s no way to reduce crime and war without sacrificing ourselves in this really blunt way. That defeatist byproduct message seeps out and muddies any raison d’être Wimmer had outside of SF martial arts
Paul, 10 years ago I would have so disagreed with you; this was the big movie when I was in high school. However, I came to the realization 10 years ago that this is just a dumb action movie with a 9th grader’s summary of 1984 grafted onto it.
Having never seen Ultraviolet, Wimmer seems like a competitant director. Though I haven’t watched this moving in a while, I don;t recall any parts of the film that were badly staged or shot. And I certainly have seen action scenes filmed much worse than this by more experienced directors.
Looking at Wimmers IMDb profile, it seems he made a career on writing dumb movies that think they are smart, So I can’t say this movie deviates much from that.
In spite of all that I still think Wimmer should still get to direct. I would compare him to Paul WS Anderson. They both make dumb action movies and tend towards self-indulgiance when they are given creative control.
I looked for a new movie or PC-tech podcast to listen to while I make mechanical drawings on my PC to pass the time.
This movie review podcast is great, it has articulated opinions, is joky enough to my liking, and apparently – has great editing.
Live long and prosper.
Cheers from Riga, Latvia.
you guys should do matrix 1-3, these films inevitably get mentioned in every podcast. Yes, they influenced many things to come after, but I think you guys could look at it through the lens that it was viewed in originally. Paul has a talent for this.
I still think the first MATRIX movie is comic-book brilliant – it’s the attempts to build on and expand the mythology in RELOADED and REVOLUTIONS where it starts to go to Hell. So yes, a MATRIX Trilogy podcast would definitely be worth listening to….
I like the idea of The Architect randomly appearing in other film properties. That guy was the best part of the Matrix sequels, with The Merovingian coming in a close second.
I like this film a lot, Paul. I remember seeing it around the same time I read 1984 in an English comp class in college and wanting to do my comparison/contrast paper on it (I ended up doing it on John Woo’s The Killer and something else, I think — it’s been so long I can’t remember). I don’t I’ve seen it since ’03 or ’04, but I’d be interested in check it out again. Maybe I’ll come across it in the $7 Blu Ray bin at Wal-mart or something.