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Kurt Wimmer, stop making movies.
Kurt WImmer fanboys piss me off.
For those of you who don't know who that is(lucky bastards), he's a hack director who's somehow garnered a cult following. He has a plethora of writing credits, none of which I recognize, and three director's credits: some cop film or somethign which I don't care about, this year's biggest cinematic turd Ultraviolet, and the unjustly-lauded Equilibrium.
Now, before I launch on a big tirade, let me make one thing clear: I don't think he's a bad director on the level of, say, Uwe Boll. Equilibrium wasn't nearly as good as people think, but it wasn't House of the Dead bad. But, on the other hand, few people will tell you that Uwe is a godly, visionary director. As is the case with Wimmer.
Equilibrium is not a good movie. It escapes the realm of the truly terrible, but winds up in the pits of the horribly derivative and moronic drivel. There is a grand total of anything original to this film, aside from the Gun Kata, which I'll get to in a moment. From the drugs taken to the set design to the omnipresent "Father", the movie is stolen wholesale from superior works, namely 1984, Brave New World, Brazil, and Farenheit 451, among others. Oh, sure Kurt Wimmer's said that Father is a nod to religion as opposed to 1984, but that's clearly bullshit. "Father" does absolutely everything Big Brother does, almost to a tee. He even hits up the bit that orwell suggested, that Big Brother might not even be a real person, or might be dead.
What a bout Gun-Kata, you might ask? Well, I've got to say that although it's a bit original, it's definately not good. For starters, it's boring to watch. Having someone stand in one place, shoot in random directions, and miraculously not get hit is not enjoyable, no matter how much you speed it up! And then there's the explanation. Oh, the explanation. Here it comes, straight from the movie:
"The gun katas. Through analysis of thousands of recorded gunfights, the Cleric has determined that the geometric distribution of antagonists in any gun battle is a statistically predictable element. The gun kata treats the gun as a total weapon, each fluid position representing a maximum kill zone, inflicting maximum damage on the maximum number of opponents while keeping the defender clear of the statistically traditional trajectories of return fire. By the rote mastery of this art, your firing efficiency will rise by no less than 120%. The difference of a 63% increase to lethal proficiency makes the master of the gun katas an adversary not to be taken lightly."
I don't feel I need to elaborate on why this is silly. Those of you with an ounce of critical thinking are probably currently on the floor, laughing. Because there is no way this could ever work.
"But Peter," you may say, "it's just a movie! It desn't HAVE to make sense!" True enough as it goes, I suppose, but in this case certainly not. I have no difficulty with accepting movieland's citizens doing the impossible-but if you're going to try and give it a rational explanation like this, that's so obviously bullshit, then I'm sorry, I can only laugh at you.
So there we have Equilibrium. Why this movie has so many people acting like it's the best thing ever is beyond me. But at least Ultraviolet is widely acnowledged to be incredibly poor. Most everything about it was terrible. Only a small group of hardcore Wimmer-ites defend it, typically by saying that it's not Wimmer's fault: 30-40 minutes were cut from the film by the studio, and a Director's cut would surely be better, right?
Wrong. Oh, it may be better-in fact, probably would be. It would certainly be hard to go in the opposite direction. But just for containing the footage found in the studio cut, there is no way this film can be worth more than 4/10 stars. It's just that bad. It's an assault on your eyes. Terrible. Horrendous. If it doesn't get at least nominated for a Razzie I will be very surprised.
So yeah, there we have it. Kurt Wimmer is a bad director. And yet, he has a horde of followers who insist he's the next big director for Hollywood. I'm sorry pals, he might have been after Equilibrium, it wasn't toally out of the question yet, but after Ultraviolet it'll be a miracle if he ever works again. He has no special vision, he has no godly talent, he IS NOT GOOD. Give it up and move on with your lives.
Grr.
For those of you who don't know who that is(lucky bastards), he's a hack director who's somehow garnered a cult following. He has a plethora of writing credits, none of which I recognize, and three director's credits: some cop film or somethign which I don't care about, this year's biggest cinematic turd Ultraviolet, and the unjustly-lauded Equilibrium.
Now, before I launch on a big tirade, let me make one thing clear: I don't think he's a bad director on the level of, say, Uwe Boll. Equilibrium wasn't nearly as good as people think, but it wasn't House of the Dead bad. But, on the other hand, few people will tell you that Uwe is a godly, visionary director. As is the case with Wimmer.
Equilibrium is not a good movie. It escapes the realm of the truly terrible, but winds up in the pits of the horribly derivative and moronic drivel. There is a grand total of anything original to this film, aside from the Gun Kata, which I'll get to in a moment. From the drugs taken to the set design to the omnipresent "Father", the movie is stolen wholesale from superior works, namely 1984, Brave New World, Brazil, and Farenheit 451, among others. Oh, sure Kurt Wimmer's said that Father is a nod to religion as opposed to 1984, but that's clearly bullshit. "Father" does absolutely everything Big Brother does, almost to a tee. He even hits up the bit that orwell suggested, that Big Brother might not even be a real person, or might be dead.
What a bout Gun-Kata, you might ask? Well, I've got to say that although it's a bit original, it's definately not good. For starters, it's boring to watch. Having someone stand in one place, shoot in random directions, and miraculously not get hit is not enjoyable, no matter how much you speed it up! And then there's the explanation. Oh, the explanation. Here it comes, straight from the movie:
"The gun katas. Through analysis of thousands of recorded gunfights, the Cleric has determined that the geometric distribution of antagonists in any gun battle is a statistically predictable element. The gun kata treats the gun as a total weapon, each fluid position representing a maximum kill zone, inflicting maximum damage on the maximum number of opponents while keeping the defender clear of the statistically traditional trajectories of return fire. By the rote mastery of this art, your firing efficiency will rise by no less than 120%. The difference of a 63% increase to lethal proficiency makes the master of the gun katas an adversary not to be taken lightly."
I don't feel I need to elaborate on why this is silly. Those of you with an ounce of critical thinking are probably currently on the floor, laughing. Because there is no way this could ever work.
"But Peter," you may say, "it's just a movie! It desn't HAVE to make sense!" True enough as it goes, I suppose, but in this case certainly not. I have no difficulty with accepting movieland's citizens doing the impossible-but if you're going to try and give it a rational explanation like this, that's so obviously bullshit, then I'm sorry, I can only laugh at you.
So there we have Equilibrium. Why this movie has so many people acting like it's the best thing ever is beyond me. But at least Ultraviolet is widely acnowledged to be incredibly poor. Most everything about it was terrible. Only a small group of hardcore Wimmer-ites defend it, typically by saying that it's not Wimmer's fault: 30-40 minutes were cut from the film by the studio, and a Director's cut would surely be better, right?
Wrong. Oh, it may be better-in fact, probably would be. It would certainly be hard to go in the opposite direction. But just for containing the footage found in the studio cut, there is no way this film can be worth more than 4/10 stars. It's just that bad. It's an assault on your eyes. Terrible. Horrendous. If it doesn't get at least nominated for a Razzie I will be very surprised.
So yeah, there we have it. Kurt Wimmer is a bad director. And yet, he has a horde of followers who insist he's the next big director for Hollywood. I'm sorry pals, he might have been after Equilibrium, it wasn't toally out of the question yet, but after Ultraviolet it'll be a miracle if he ever works again. He has no special vision, he has no godly talent, he IS NOT GOOD. Give it up and move on with your lives.
Grr.