Movie review: Equilibrium (2002) Directed by Kurt Wimmer

In a futuristic world humanity lives in a fascist state after becoming total dicks as result of  world war three. This state is held together by a drug that turns people into zombies, sort of like liquid smart phone, and an army of gun toting religious boobs. If you toss in some fat, toothless, layabouts you have a backwater town in the old south.

                                                                                                                    The fascist dick holes are opposed by militant antique collectors who live in the bombed out buildings left over from the war. Bullets fly, flea market junk gets burnt, and people keep shooting up with urine colored liquid. If you were having a bad trip in a crack house it would feel like this movie.

This is not to say I dislike this film. No, I do find it slow and dragging when things aren’t burning and people aren’t being shot, but this is a well shot artistic film. The drab tones and muted color scheme is punctuated by warm moments of soft glow. Close ups and tight shots illustrate humanity and emotion wile sweeping cityscapes show us the sterile world of our future.

On the whole, Equilibrium is a solid, post apocalyptic, Sci Fi film with cool action and a complete world.

Who should watch this film?

Sci Fi geeks will love this and movie buff should take notes. Not suitable for family viewing and somewhat too heady for your simpler friends. Watch this with your girl on movie night and if she doesn’t think it’s a good film never watch movies with her again. 

Movie Review: Robocop (1987) directed by Paul Verhoeven

With a remake on the horizon this is the perfect time to look through your

DVDs or dust off your VHS and pop in the old 80s action film “Robocop”. If you have the DVD a remake sounds like a good idea because the stop motion action is on the cheesy side and the models just fall short of real. Then again if you have less than perfect eyesight you may not notice these things.

Peter Weller, who plays the Techno-zombie title character Robocop, gives us a surprisingly true performance. The internal struggle of ghost and machine is vivid and real with Weller. We gain the feel that no armor, not even that of titanium, can protect a police officer from the many levels of crime and corruption that our hero needs to navigate.

In the concrete and rust jungle Robocop must fight cackling villains that delight in their mischief like imps from hell, and in the crisp and shine rich world he faces the techno-terrors of his own creators. Even within his own body there is a battle waged between the machine with it programming and the man with his memories.

Robocop is a film of almost nonstop action that hardly made it to an R rating. It makes statements and asks questions about who we are in our age of computers and technology. The film Robocop may not have aged well but its sentiments and symbolism only become more timely with age.

Who should watch this film: Sci Fi and action junkies, lovers of good story and strong plot, those of us who would like to see a movie that asks us to look deeper and read the subtext.

This film is beautiful, sad, hopeful, and artistic.