12 Sci-Fis With Bafflingly Low Rotten Tomatoes Scores
1. Equilibrium - 40% Score
Sometimes films reach up too high and crash down with the heights they aspire to. One concept is good enough, but filmmakers sometimes go overboard and throw in other cinematic ingredients and the once dense and interesting plot can feel both light, and bloated.
It's understandable that expressionless actors in dark trench coats wielding akimbo shotguns wouldn't appeal to many. Especially since The Matrix did it so much better.
Having said that, what kind of monster gives a film like Equilibrium a low scoring?
The movie boils down action and dystopian tropes to their most basic essence, and rolls it all up into an appealing story that caters to the highest common denominator of teenagers in the early 2000's.
With a very interesting concept behind it, Equilibrium might have been ahead of its time as it proposed a dystopian society governed not just by thought and emotion police. Christian Bale acts the hell out of playing an unstoppable gun ninja, and the action set pieces are fun and exciting enough to keep audiences of even today entertained.
How can this film score so low? Sure, it debuted and then was forgotten almost immediately, but the target audience for a film like this definitely didn't complain.