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How entertaining? ★★☆☆☆
Thought provoking? ★★☆☆☆ 13 November 2015
A movie review of EQUALS. |
“According to the laws of aerodynamics they shouldn’t fly, but they don’t know it, so they fly anyway,” Nia (Kristen Stewart)
When indie cinema tackles genre, one hopes for a fresh perspective (e.g. BRICK). Science fiction dystopia, which can be used as a mirror for the now, is currently dominating the box office with teen angst: THE HUNGER GAMES, DIVERGENT and THE MAZE RUNNER series. Hope then for Drake Doremus, who wowed with LIKE CRAZY, to look at the world with his almost misanthropic eye. His fascination with the minutiae of human romantic entanglement, last seen to dour effect in BREATHE IN, is applied to the future. The result is unfortunately a vacuous, derivative mess of continual déjà vu from other movies:
- 99% of usable land has been destroyed we are told, bar two tracts. We get to see a glimpse of one: A hi-tech, post-modern city. From LOGAN’S RUN to INSURGENT, we have the last bastion of humanity. Immediately the setting induces a yawn. Currently, animé TV show ‘Attack on Titan’ has been giving fortress homo sapiens a nightmarish twist. Oh, and only a glimpse of the enclave, because we just get to see a tiny part – there is no world building or attention to detail.
When indie cinema tackles genre, one hopes for a fresh perspective (e.g. BRICK). Science fiction dystopia, which can be used as a mirror for the now, is currently dominating the box office with teen angst: THE HUNGER GAMES, DIVERGENT and THE MAZE RUNNER series. Hope then for Drake Doremus, who wowed with LIKE CRAZY, to look at the world with his almost misanthropic eye. His fascination with the minutiae of human romantic entanglement, last seen to dour effect in BREATHE IN, is applied to the future. The result is unfortunately a vacuous, derivative mess of continual déjà vu from other movies:
- 99% of usable land has been destroyed we are told, bar two tracts. We get to see a glimpse of one: A hi-tech, post-modern city. From LOGAN’S RUN to INSURGENT, we have the last bastion of humanity. Immediately the setting induces a yawn. Currently, animé TV show ‘Attack on Titan’ has been giving fortress homo sapiens a nightmarish twist. Oh, and only a glimpse of the enclave, because we just get to see a tiny part – there is no world building or attention to detail.
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- Emotions are viewed as a terminal disease, which at the latter stages require the patient being euthanized. Citizens are monitored for any signs. Diagnosis comes with pity/ostracizing. This has already been tackled in B-movie guilty pleasure EQUILIBRIUM, starring Christian Bale. EQUALS, on the other hand, permits no pleasure for its characters, or its audience for that matter. (DEMOLITION MAN was a fun spin on the locked-down society.)
- The mind numbing routine of authoritarianism has a gentler hand here, though is more meaningful in the bureaucratic horror of BRAZIL. We follow Silas (Nicholas Hoult) during his banal morning and evening regimens. Socialising is non-existent. Isolation is de rigueur. Couples are a danger to everyone, states public service broadcaster, the Voice of The Collective (Claudia Kim). Women of the correct age are selected for artificial insemination.
- Drug inhibitors, abstinence, EQUALS has significant echoes of George Lucas’ THX 1138. Beyond plot similarities, the clean lines to the production design and costumes, and the pervasiveness of white, were utilised to more searing effect nearly 45 years ago.
- Nia and Silas work as a writer and illustrator respectively in a department creating supposition as fact. What (might) have happened to the world, and its current state, is propaganda, and only dawns when they start falling in love. It is hard to tell whether their interactions are intentionally laughably clunky. The romance has the, er, winning frisson of another Lucas offering, ATTACK OF THE CLONES.
Were the filmmakers counting on its audience not having watched other movies?
EQUALS has the emotional and intellectual depth of a perfume advert.
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