Closet Sci-Fi Geek

Equilibrium (2002) was one of those films that completely zipped past me when it was out in the theaters. Since I hadn’t heard of it before, I wasn’t expecting much when I rented the DVD. Then the beginning of the film really had me worried: An overblown narration tells of World War III and how humans decided to get rid of emotions in order to save us from ourselves. A specially trained cop called a “Cleric” was designated to sniff out any “sense offenders” and arrest them (or shoot them on the spot).

In the first scene, we see Cleric Preston (Christian Bale) storming into a room filled with renegades who are hoarding works of art. There, they find the Mona Lisa (the “authentic” Mona Lisa) and torch it along with a host of other paintings. So already I’m wondering how the Mona Lisa ended up in what appears to be the remains of the United States, hidden under the floorboards in an old apartment. (As if the renegades couldn’t find a better hiding place for it!)

So this entire premise seemed completely implausible to me at first, but I decided to give the film a chance.

As the film gets going, it gets more interesting. All citizens in this future world are required to take shots of Prozium to remove their emotions (the Prozium actually mutes the excessive highs and lows but does leave a small bit of emotion left). Any sort of art and decoration is banned. People live in a grey, bland city without entertainment or love.

The film follows Preston as he accidentally drops one of his doses and ends up feeling things. This, of course, leads to all sorts of action and chaos. By the end, it’s clear that what’s at stake here isn’t so much saving humans from themselves, but providing power and control to those at the top. And this finally made some sense to me.

I ended up liking the film a lot more than I expected. It’s got great acting from Bale, an interesting plot that has some surprising little twists (and one expected one), and some great action scenes.

The fighting scenes are terrific and one of the best parts of the film. Now, it would be easy to compare Equilibrium to The Matrix because of choreography. There are some similarities. But Equilibrium manages to make the fighting still fresh and interesting. One of my favorite scenes involved our hero and his nemesis slapping guns away from each other. Somehow, it worked.

The film also carries a social statement about the use of drugs to dull emotions. Prozium is obviously a take-off on Prozac. As someone who feels that “Big Pharma” is too often pushing everyone to walk around as emotionless sheeple, I’m definitely glad to see sci-fi take on this issue.

Overall, I was totally won over by Equilibrium by the time it was over with, so much so that I look forward to renting it again and rewatching it someday.

August 27th, 2006 | Category: Movies | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL