I know this movie may be shuffled into a bin marked, “Martrix rip-offs”, but that’s frankly just not true. Whatever moron put that movie review onto the cover art does it a hideous disservice. This is not the Matrix. The Matrix is about mathematics reality conceptions – this movie is about beauty and the human soul. This movie did not shake my perceptions to the core of my being. What it did was re-awaken something small but important inside my mind. This movie is a well-acted reminder that the best reasons for living and caring about living are all the same. Life is beauty, and aside from Gothamesque settings and 1984-inspired civil servants, this movie made a simple, almost whispered statement that human spirit alone isn’t enough to live on; you need reason to do so.

And the martial scenes are great, too!

There are some good action sequences in the movie, but I found the premise uncompelling: to stop war, would it be worth eliminating human emotions? I suppose it could be phrased more generally as “would it be worth persecuting/killing a minority in order to eliminate war?” In the movie, it hardly seems like anyone is suffering due to the elimination of emotion. Almost by definition, no one could be, except for the few who refuse to dose themselves with the emotionally deadening medication. (Pets are an exception, apparently; they get slaughtered for having emotional content or emotional temptation or some such thing.)

The movie is inconsistent in keeping to the rather bizarre premise. Characters who are supposed to be dosing themselves frequently display emotion of one sort or another – big grins on the face of Taye Diggs, and Christian Bales’ boss slamming his fist down in anger, are among demonstrations of emotions that should never be seen in such a society.

It’s not really a bad movie, just a bit long. Probably worth watching just to get the concept of “gun katas.”

The movie would have been really good if it just ended 10 minutes before it did. Still, it’s worth watching. While it’s not as good as The Matrix, it’s a good movie in its own right.

what a godawful Matrix clone. The gunfights are nice (if a bit daft) but the movie as a whole is terrible. The excuse I have is that there was nothing else on TV, but honestly, there are millions of ways to waste your time that are better than watching this snorefest.