"Equilibrium" NOT a rip off of the "Matrix"

This movie shot itself in the foot by using the tagline on the front cover that said, "Better than the Matrix". "Equilibrium has only one aspect in common with "The Matrix" and that is the use of martial arts.

If you have ever read "!984" or "Brave New World", then you will fall in love with this movie. The basic plot is this: Emotion is the enemy. The major city in the future is filled with a drug hazed population take medicine in order to alleviate their emotions. Their version of the police are called clerics. The job of the clerics is to wipe out the revolution surrounding the out skirts of the city. "Sense offenders" are killed or captured and incinerated for feeling. There is no art, music, books, or pets, because afterall they instill emotion. One of the clerics decides to see what it is like to feel and winds up turning to the revolution and plots to take out the current governing system ran by "Father". I don't want to say much more because it will give to much away. The plotline was great and the action is out of this world. Unlike "The Matrix" all the stunts had no strings attached to them. The art of battle in this movie incorporates guns with martial arts to optimize kill efficiency. It is a movie you must see!

The best thing about this movie was "Gunkata" the martial art they devised specifically for the movie, the plot and general guise of the film was most definitely a rip off of both 1984 and The Matrix combined, with a few other movies thrown in for good measure. 5/10

Personally, I was disappointed with the movie. But I will agree with you that the tag-line hurt it from the get-go. It is nothing like the Matrix.

I have to agree with Jonna,

Equilibrium is a far superior film to the Matrix.. Matrix was too hyped and too hollywood.. it kind of reminded me of the police academy movies when they first came out, the first was pretty funny (at the time), second was slightly worse (with exception of Zed) and the third was appauling.. The film started out good but built up to a limp collapse, fell asleep in the cinema watching the third.

Originally posted by Klepto
I have to agree with Jonna,

Equilibrium is a far superior film to the Matrix.. Matrix was too hyped and too hollywood.. it kind of reminded me of the police academy movies when they first came out, the first was pretty funny (at the time), second was slightly worse (with exception of Zed) and the third was appauling.. The film started out good but built up to a limp collapse, fell asleep in the cinema watching the third.

Thank you. Yeah,"The Matrix" started out strong and then just totally collapse to predicatable dialogue by the end. I think people who are more into post-apocalyptic totalitarianism stories can relate much more so to "Equilibrium". The main goal that they are trying to drive home is that emotion is the source of mankind's evil towards one another, and by eliminating it they thought they could produce a utopia. All I have to say to this is: "War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery."

If the Matrix came out after Equilibrium would you guys still have the same opinions?

Equilibrium had a lot of potential but not a lot of budget.

Great films can be made on the cheap and although Equilibrium had it's brief high points, they were far outweighed by it's poor scripting and predictability, coupled together with it's Matrixesque gun/fight sequences and the general Orwellian theme, it was almost guranteed a straight to DVD release.

Equalibrium is a great movie. For an alternative to The Matrix you couldnt find anything else. The only one downer about Equalibrium is the use of the 80's style phones, but other than that - a brilliant sci-fi movie. Who knows how much better it would have been with a bigger budget than its 20 million budget.

This movie shot itself in the foot by using the tagline on the front cover that said, "Better than the Matrix". "Equilibrium has only one aspect in common with "The Matrix" and that is the use of martial arts.

And the fact that both protaganists have the same tailor...

Originally posted by Gazrok
And the fact that both protaganists have the same tailor...

I don't recall Keanu wearing white in the Matrix which Bale does for the latter part of the movie?

The Matrix was obviously the bigger movie but this one had much better ideas and performances. I few films suffered at the time of the Matrix, mostly Dark City which was fantastic...it just didn't have Kung Fu. Oh well...

I don't recall Keanu wearing white in the Matrix which Bale does for the latter part of the movie?

True, but even Equilibrium's cover (and Bale's outfit on it) pretty much screams "Neo"...

Originally posted by Gazrok
True, but even Equilibrium's cover (and Bale's outfit on it) pretty much screams "Neo"...

hmmm...you think so?





Other than black coats I can't really see the...bah! I think I'll just stop being such a freakin' nerd.

EQ was a brilliant film. Low budget but fun and shows Christian Bale as the rising star he is. He can act and do all the stunts too, not many actors can act and do action at the same time.

Look at Dog Soldiers another Brit/Euro US funded indie film. yet i think it was an excellent film.

Originally posted by rustiswordz
EQ was a brilliant film. Low budget but fun and shows Christian Bale as the rising star he is. He can act and do all the stunts too, not many actors can act and do action at the same time.

Look at Dog Soldiers another Brit/Euro US funded indie film. yet i think it was an excellent film.

Rustiswordz- "Dog Soldiers" was a terrific film about werewolves. I enjoyed it greatly. "The Matrix" had the money from Hollywood for their superly farfetched stunts. I'm not saying it's a bad movie, but the plot behind the two movies is completely different. I firmly believe that if EQ had the funding that "The Matrix" had it would have been a bigger hit. I find it fantastic that the stunts were all done by humans in EQ and not digitalized. It gave the movie a certain tangibility to it.
Rust

The Matrix wasn't anything original. All of it's ideas were borrowed from books such as "Neuromancer" and manga like "Ghost in the Shell." All the Matrix did was bring these types of thoughts and ideas to the popular domain - they had recently only existed in a niche market. As far as the Matrix "martial arts" - all of that has been done for decades in Hong Kong movies; again, all the Matrix did was bring it more towards the popular domain. It's called "commercialisation."

I can't really say one film is better over the other - it all comes down to personal opinion. And when you look at it, they are pretty similar, but you can't say that Eqilibrium was a rip-off of the Matrix just because they are similar:

One dealed with humans being slaves to machines, and the other deals with humans being slaves to drugs. One dealed with an individual's discovery of himself, the other deals with an individual's discovery of himself. Geeze, how many times have we seen this before? About a thousand times in the last few decades!

All of these ideas have been worked to death before, the problem is this: no one really investigates to see where these "original" script writers get their ideas - the only thing they can really do is extend upon the ideas that have been done before, or try and make them better. So because of most people's lack of investigational abilities, they will always say that something is a ripoff of something else.

Anyways, those are my observations.