[edit] # 22:36

Jehova

Netflix allows me to skate the line between the bad-funny sci-fi movie and the bad-painful sci-fi movie. I should say, I'm not a very good skater.

To wit, Equilibrium.

Equilibrium is a movie that got released in like one theater in Paramus and was later shown by accident on a small plane. Which is surprising because it stars Christian Bale and Emily Watson who, I believe, were tricked. It takes place in the post-apocalyptic future - you know the one where society realized that the only way to avoid future violence would be to suppress our emotions using a cleverly named drug called Prozium. Good to see that uncreative branding survived nuclear winter.

Most people voluntarily tie-off and shoot-up, but the outlaws live on the fringe, getting their feel on by wearing shabby clothes and viewing works of art.

No, really.

The opening scene is a bunch of grubby folks who have holed up with the Mona Lisa and a Fischer Price record player and sit around listening to emo-pop and sobbing. Okay, I lied about the emo ... everything else - true.

Christian Bale is the highest ranking Grammaton Cleric, a nigh-supernatural badass who is able to dodge bullets by using statistical models and fancy posing. The clerics are the enforcement arm for the Pax Stolidus, wiping out the feelies in the name of the Father; the grammaton bit being a reference to the tetragrammaton, the four letter abbreviation for the name of God which has absolutely no relevance in this movie whatsoever but, hey, it's a fun fact.

Anyway, it's obviously only a matter of time before Christian realizes the error of his emotionally distant ways and starts to explore life on the other side of the weepy divide. Plus, I think it dawned on him that knowing the difference between the mean and the median in no way allowed him to avoid getting shot. I may be reading in my own frustration here.

Still, I feel all the silliness actually makes the movie work in a way that doesn't and would recommend it for your next let's-all-sit-around-and-make-fun-of-the-movie night.

As an extra bonus: someone gets his or her face cut off during the climactic battle but I'm not going to say who. It could be Emily Watson. It could be Sean "Boromir" Bean who's in the movie for about 10 minutes, possibly with a face. It could even be Skeet Ulrich ... except he's not in this movie.

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