It not so distant future, after World War III, mankind has decided that the only way to prevent another devastating war is to rid the population of all feeling. All senses, good or bad, are to be eliminated from man and woman by drug and all items that can trigger senses such as paintings or music are to be burned and eradicated. To feel is to be a Sense Offender, a crime punishable by death.

Similar to the movie Gattaca, director and writer Kurt Wimmer spends most of his movie creating a society without feeling and exploring what would happen if one man were to start feeling. There are many holes found in their bleak future and yet the movie is very convincing that such a future could exist – although no one would really want it to. The largest hole Equilibrium has is that kids exist, but the movie doesn’t tell how they came to be for loving your kids, your wife, and/or engaging in the act that produces kids is outlawed. The movie is trying to say that somehow a man and woman can marry without feeling, produce and raise kids all without with feeling too. Technology may exist that allow kids to be produced without feeling, but such a device is not detailed in the movie. Such details do not deter the film, and in fact raise secondary questions that one can ask after the final credits roll.

Equilibrium stars John Preston/Christian Bale, a cleric, who works for Father/Sean Pertwee, to help rid the world of those who sense or have feelings. His partner in crime Partridge/Sean Bean, as the film begins has gone off the drug Prozium which suppresses feelings and has begun to have emotional feelings from reading poetry. For it is his job, Preston shoots his partner in the head eradicating yet another criminal from society. Later Preston by accident misses his dose of Prozium which opens the door to his own emotional awakening including guilt and his own seemingly ultimate death at the hands of his new partner Brandt/Taye Diggs.

Christian Bale gives perhaps one of the best performances of his career as John Preston for he never quite goes over the top with his emotional awakening. There are times he cries, yet for most of the movie Bale keeps his stare, his gaze, his whole body in line with being absent of emotion even though we know as audience members that slowly he is being reborn as a man with emotions.

Equilibrium however is not a movie like Lathe of Heaven which shares common threads about the future and the future in a controlled society – and borrows or easily categorizes itself in comparison to such recent flicks as The Matrix, the aforementioned Gattaca, and some older classics like Fahrenheit 451 and Brave New World. Whereas the common threads to Gattaca, 451, and Brave New World come in the form of the story or society – it is the action that makes most think of The Matrix.

The Matrix had bullet time photography. Equilibrium has gunkata!.

Gun-Kata is the practice of martial arts fighting with guns. Characters flip through the air and perform amazing fight sequence all the while holding and using their guns. A similar scene can be found in The Matrix, but in that scene the actors are suspended in time and in the air as they attempt to kill each other. The Matrix tried to state that the actors were moving too fast for us to see – but with Equilibrium we get to experience each frame, each movement, and see just for ourselves the art of gunkata. There’s one scene towards the end of the film where two character fight hand to hand combat all the while firing their guns. As is the case with most action films neither character succeeds in shooting the other – although both should in theory be left with permanent hearing damage.

There are quite a few gun battles in Equilibrium – enough to satisfy any action fan. There are scenes in the dark where the only light we see are from guns firing, there are firing squads, there are even scenes of people rapidly dying while men with guns charge. There is also some sword play and the often overused special effect of a piece of flesh falling off from the rest of the body (Cube, Thirteen Ghosts, Ghost Ship).

And yet throughout all the countless gun battles it never felt that the world of guns and the art of deadly force was what we had to fear in the future. Kurt Wimmer does a good job at constantly reminding viewers of the horror of the future if censorship were to ever rears its ugly horns and take control of society by force. To perhaps drill his point a little too far, Wimmer introduces a puppy dog – a symbol of undying love, protection and innocence that is not human. The question is clear; how can one not feel something for a cute little dog that only wants to lick your face?

For some reason Equilibrium didn’t last long in the theaters – in fact I don’t remember ever hearing any press about the movie being in the theaters. It also doesn’t help that the movie was ready for release two years before it was finally released. Maybe Dimension films just decided to let the movie fly like a free bird out of the gates with their guns cocked.

For whatever the reason, viewers should flock and check out Equilibrium on DVD. The DVD itself comes with not one, but two commentaries enough to educate just about anyone with what could have been or will be if we take censorship too far.




Recommended: Yes