Equilibrium

[Guest ScirosDarkblade]

I don't know if a thread for this film is around, so I'll start one.

I'm sure many of you have seen it, and think it's totally awesome (because it IS totally awesome). It was Christian Bale's breakthrough [i]action[/i] role, and is why I really wanted him to be Batman in the first place (so I was happy he was chosen). As much as it shares with Brave New World and Fahrenheit 451, it's the cool and well-filmed action scenes which set it apart from other current movies. Some of the best action scenes I can think of are from this film.

Anyway, I think about 80% of who has seen this film thinks it rocks. I'm wondering who thought it was downright crappy, and why.

Anyone who says it sucked better freaking cite Taye Diggs's acting as one of the reasons. Because it was atrocious, and it by far the worst part of the film.
The "reverse betrayal" twist which actually made no sense at all should also be cited.
If the above reasons are NOT cited, then whoever watched the movie obviously watches it without thinking, or without caring about film quality to begin with. Those people don't have to answer, because I don't like to talk to them.

[Winter]

I just watched that film on my birthday last week. Surprisingly great film.

Cant wait to see Bale in Batman....mmmmmm

[Guest ScirosDarkblade]

[quote name='Yisan']Also, the "reverse betrayal" made perfect sense. I guess someone was watching the movie without thinking.[/quote]

Cleverly stated, but wrong. (If you can explain to me how I'm wrong about what I'm gonna say and what you say makes sense, then I'm only going to be happy, because I really like Equilibrium and I wish it was plothole-free.) Spoiler time...
[spoiler]Ok, so Bale kills a patrol squad. Using HIS gun. Then, during a raid, Bale secretly exchanges guns with Diggs. Later, Diggs captures Bale and brings him to the vice-councel. Diggs now possesses both guns. Bale has Diggs hand over the gun Diggs thought was his own (but was in fact originally Bale's) and had the vice-coucel run some sort of scan (I can only assume ballistics, but it could've been a cooty-meter for all I know). Anyway, it turns out that the gun Diggs thought was his was in fact used to take out the patrol squad. So Diggs is taken away for summary execution. We'll stop here for now.

Now, I hope it's also clear that the guns are in fact registered under the different clerics. It's not like the dark ages or anything. So a ballistics check (or any legitimate test of the sort) would have in fact revealed that Preston's gun was the one used to kill the patrol squad, regardless of who handed it it to DuPont for testing. In fact, last possession is only more troublesome for Preston, as Preston himself said that Brandt took Preston's gun from him when he arrested him.

So, you see, from Preston's point of view (or anyone's who was paying any attention) there is absolutely no evidence pointing to Brandt having killed the patrol squad. Everything points squarely at Preston. You see, the screenwriter had the gun switch take place too late. It didn't work logically. That's what I was calling the reverse betrayal loophole. Preston's frameup was, all things considered, not a frameup at all. He should've been screwed.

Ok back to the movie. I guess you could say that DuPont and Brandt knew all along that Preston was guilty, and just pretended to buy the whole bullcrap frameup when in fact they were just setting Preston up for an even bigger fall once he got the Resistance out from underground. That does make sense. But Preston didn't know that. So how the heck did he figure his frameup even would've worked (considering it didn't make sense)? It's the worst attempt at a frameup I've ever seen, and makes Preston seem downright stupid. That's what I think is bad with the film. [/spoiler]