A random rental crossed my vision last night: Equilibrium, a 2002 science fiction film starring Christian Bale, a lad currently popular though woefully challenged, talent-wise. More's the pity...
Equilibrium is, fundamentally, a knockoff of Ray Bradbury's classic Fahrenheit 451, a book adapted to film, then recently remade. Equilibrium simply expands the notion of books to all art in the name of eradicating feelings, though that only seems to apply to positive ones. The idea is to prevent a fourth world war from occurring by enacting it on a civil level... Fine. I get it. Too bad Sean Bean gets killed off so quickly, leaving Christian Bale, who doesn't actually need the emotion-supressing drug in real life, to carry the film.
Okay, I was gonna go long with this, but that pretty much sums it up.
In the immortal words of Thing, 'Nuff said.
Showing posts with label sf. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sf. Show all posts
Friday, January 19, 2007
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Children of Men - A Secular Nativity Tale
Clive Owen is growing on me, and I don't mean in a fungal way. He has that brooding presence that works so well for Gothic romance heroes such as Heathcliffe and Darcy, though I've yet to actually see him in such a film.
Julianne Moore, on the other hand, has frequently blown me away with her performances, though I found The Forgotten a bit too much like its title for lasting satisfaction. Her touted presence in, then, understandably left me ambivalent about the prospect of seeing the film. Sure enough, her performance, or should I say her role, startled me. 'Nuff said.
Now, I have not yet had the pleasure of reading P. D. James' novel, but this film certainly encourages me to do so. What I really want to know is whether the original author, the screenwriter, or the collective film production team initiated all those sly Biblical Nativity parallels, some narrative, some visual, some dialogue, some mere passing quips. I must say, Michael Caine makes a curious Simeon (Luke 2:25ff), if that is who he was supposed to be. I did find the whole gender reversal tweak interesting, whenever it manifested. I also liked the fog and fresh beginnings and being lifted up into the visual clouds that is implied rather than shown.
But maybe it's just me, and all that stuff wasn't really there. So maybe I shouldn't be so offended that the pharisaic parallels were called "Fish". Really, I think I read too much into things and perhaps this movie really is the Bladerunner of its generation, though I think that's a bit of an insult to both vehicles, IMHO.
Julianne Moore, on the other hand, has frequently blown me away with her performances, though I found The Forgotten a bit too much like its title for lasting satisfaction. Her touted presence in
Now, I have not yet had the pleasure of reading P. D. James' novel, but this film certainly encourages me to do so. What I really want to know is whether the original author, the screenwriter, or the collective film production team initiated all those sly Biblical Nativity parallels, some narrative, some visual, some dialogue, some mere passing quips. I must say, Michael Caine makes a curious Simeon (Luke 2:25ff), if that is who he was supposed to be. I did find the whole gender reversal tweak interesting, whenever it manifested. I also liked the fog and fresh beginnings and being lifted up into the visual clouds that is implied rather than shown.
But maybe it's just me, and all that stuff wasn't really there. So maybe I shouldn't be so offended that the pharisaic parallels were called "Fish". Really, I think I read too much into things and perhaps this movie really is the Bladerunner of its generation, though I think that's a bit of an insult to both vehicles, IMHO.
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