EQUILIBRIUM features an unexpectedly strong performance from Christian Bale, great production design, an ambitious concept, and an admirable moral. Its hyper-real and accelerated fight scenes, featuring both martial arts and gun battle, are the prettiest violence I have seen outside of Keanu Reeves' and Carrie Anne Moss' wirework in the Matrix films.
This is the story of a near-future world in which the aftermath of World War 3 brought about the mandatory usage of a drug called Prozium, a drug that dulls the feelings of hate and jealousy, as well as their polar opposite, love. There is no place for art or indulgences; it is difficult to determine what the members of this supposedly utopian society do each day, except in the case of those who enforce the mandatory daily dose of the drug, and of those who make it.
Enter John Preston, a cleric who enforces the laws against "sense offense", and who also possesses the skill of detection - which any human in our world can instantly name as empathy.
Unfortunately, EQUILIBRIUM displays the telltale symptoms of a film conceived as a moral statement around which a story was constructed.
John Preston's new partner shows far too much zeal for a man devoid of feeling; John's son is too fanatical to be under the influence of mind-controlling drugs. At the core of this fable is the flawed logic that humans without emotion (and therefore without ambition or fear) could construct and enforce a system of involuntary control over other human beings.
In all honesty, I followed, enjoyed, and was not disappointed by the two hours I spent with this film. I give it 7/10 for the strong production and performances. But I strongly recommend the much superior GATTACA for a near-future utopian film of the recent past, as well as 1984 and FAHRENHEIT 451 - classics of the genre. And a far more carefully considered fable of better living through chemistry can be found by reading Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World".
This is the story of a near-future world in which the aftermath of World War 3 brought about the mandatory usage of a drug called Prozium, a drug that dulls the feelings of hate and jealousy, as well as their polar opposite, love. There is no place for art or indulgences; it is difficult to determine what the members of this supposedly utopian society do each day, except in the case of those who enforce the mandatory daily dose of the drug, and of those who make it.
Enter John Preston, a cleric who enforces the laws against "sense offense", and who also possesses the skill of detection - which any human in our world can instantly name as empathy.
Unfortunately, EQUILIBRIUM displays the telltale symptoms of a film conceived as a moral statement around which a story was constructed.
John Preston's new partner shows far too much zeal for a man devoid of feeling; John's son is too fanatical to be under the influence of mind-controlling drugs. At the core of this fable is the flawed logic that humans without emotion (and therefore without ambition or fear) could construct and enforce a system of involuntary control over other human beings.
In all honesty, I followed, enjoyed, and was not disappointed by the two hours I spent with this film. I give it 7/10 for the strong production and performances. But I strongly recommend the much superior GATTACA for a near-future utopian film of the recent past, as well as 1984 and FAHRENHEIT 451 - classics of the genre. And a far more carefully considered fable of better living through chemistry can be found by reading Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World".