Damn! This movie totally ruined my very own self-invented little theory stating that all cult/exploitation movies with the number "2000" are incredibly cool. You know, for example, obscure post-apocalyptic cult flicks like "Holocaust 2000", "Escape 2000" and "Death Race 2000" were tremendous fun to watch, so I was fairly confident that this one would be cool too, especially since the title refers to a type of heavy machine gun. Wrong again, of course, as "Equalizer 2000" is a gigantic yawner of a B-movie without any sort of suspense, coherence or ingenuity. This movie actually just is a non-stop 90 minutes lasting series of deafening shootouts, explosions and car chases. Now, this may very well sound like the ideal description for a cheap 80's B-movie, but trust me, the complete lack of a plot gets boring very fast. You know you're in trouble when watching a film of which the acting sequences are so dull that you start spotting the errors in geography instead. "Equalizer 2000" is supposedly set after the nuclear winter; in a time were the snowy grounds of Alaska turned into unbearably hot deserts. The intro states there isn't any type of vegetation on our planet any more, yet a couple of sequences later the characters are playing cat- and-mouse right next to a crystal clear lake surrounded with beautifully green plants. The story is really, really basic. The post-nuclear world is divided in small independent communities that are all rebelling against (and attempting to steal oil from) the powerful "Ownership". After they killed his father, former mercenary of the Ownership Slade flees into the desert and joins one of the rebel communities. There, he works on the Equalizer 2000, the most powerful gun in the world and the only weapon that can put a stop to all the rivalry and gang wars. "Equalizer 2000" literally just jumps from one overlong shootout scene towards the other, but we don't have a clue about who is fighting against who or why exactly. The battle sequences are also very unexciting and dire, without cruel violence or harsh bloodshed. They're just chaotic scenes in which a bunch of losers – that don't even bother to seek any cover – aim at each other and occasionally one falls down. Lead actor Richard Norton, a poor man's Chuck Norris, luckily doesn't speak too much because he's one of the most wooden actors I've ever seen. His love interest is Corinne Wahl, a stunningly ravishing girl with a fabulous rack and a tight leather pants, but the idiot only has eyes for the stupid titular gun! There's an early role for Robert Patrick as a sleazy independent gun smuggler. Boring, pitiable and infuriating waste of time; avoid like hell!
Review of Equalizer 2000
