Equilibrium (2002)

Starring: Christian Bale, Sean Bean, Sean Pertwee, William Fichtner, Taye Diggs, Emily Watson

First, the Lowdown: In the future, emotion is outlawed – again.

There is a difference between acknowledging a piece of work's importance and understanding its significance. More on this later.

In the early part of the 21^st century, according to some self-important narration, the Third World War broke out. Civilization was shattered, the human race brought to the brink of extinction, blah, blah, blah. The survivors have a revelation that human nature itself is our own weakness, and thusly our own downfall. In response, they created an organization called the Tetragrammaton , whose Clerics are charged with the task of prosecuting and eradicating anything that generates strong emotion (art, music, books, etc.) and those who allow themselves to emote in any way at all.

In the shattered outskirts of the city-state of Librium, a group of men huddle around varied objects of art, allowing their emotive selves to stretch out without fear of exposure. The repose is short lived, as the police show up. Exchanging their treasures for firearms a melee ensues, with man after man falling under the bullets of authority. Another car arrives to the scene and two men step out, their faces devoid of expression. They are the Grammaton Clerics, specialists in their field, and are there to take out anyone the police cannot handle. The resistors have barricaded themselves behind a heavy door and refuse to leave. One of the Clerics orders the other men to shoot out the lightbulbs in the hall they occupy at the same time they blow open the door. Drawing a pair of pistols, he bursts through the door just as it is blown open. After a flurry of gunfire, the lights go out, leaving the resistors confused. A few more moments pass then the Cleric opens fire - hitting each man exactly. Having killed all the men present, the Clerics search the dwelling for contraband. They uncover a cache of hidden items underneath a Persian carpet – paintings, books, records. A field expert arrives and analyzes a sample portrait, the Mona Lisa, and authenticates it. Having found what they were looking for, they Cleric orders the whole lot incinerated.

On the way back, Preston (our lead Cleric) notices that his partner has a book tucked into his pocket. When Preston asks why his partner didn't leave it to be collected and logged, he tells him that he wanted to take it personally because the collection team sometimes misses things. The pair returns back to Libria, an immence city complex walled off from the outside ruins. Everything is gray and functional, its citizens wearing only the most modest clothing, leading unexceptional lives. Throughout the city, Father – the leader of Libria, praises the citizenry for embracing the cure for all their ills: Prozium. Prozium is a psychoactive that flattens people emotionally: no longer is there rage or violence or depression, but there is no elation either. During everyone's daily routine, the populous is constantly watched as police with automatic weapons scan for any sign of extreme emotion, and all are required to take regular doses of Prozium at proscribed intervals – bringing activity to a brief halt as people pause to inject the drug into a convenient vein.

At the Tetragrammaton building, Preston is debriefed by Vice Councilor Dupont, second only to Father. Dupont lauds Preston's almost supernatural ability to find “sense offenders” and inquires about his family. While Preston has a son and a daughter, his wife was incarcerated and executed for “sense crime.” Preston did not report her however, it was another concerned person. Dupont seems puzzled that the best agent of the Clerics could not have foreseen this. At his desk, Preston analyzes a recorded conversation between his partner and him earlier in the day and notes the other man's puzzled mien. His partner asked when the Clerics were going to stop and how long it was going to take until nothing is left. Following up on his hunch, Preston checks in with the collection unit to see if the book his partner was carrying was returned – only to find that his partner has never returned ANY evidence from a raid. Apparently his partner has been leaving the city to go to the “Nether” (the outlaying ruins) for weeks under the guise of official business. Preston tracks him to an abandoned church and tries to reason with him, but ultimately kills him for being a sense offender.

Almost immediately Preston is given a new partner, Brandt, who has also been described as intuitive by his superiors. Brandt sees the new opportunity as a career advancing move and looks forward to achieve the kind of status that Preston touts. At home, Preston's son tells him that he saw a classmate crying in the hall and asks if he should be reported. Preston beds down for the night and dreams of his belated wife and her arrest.

The next day as he freshens up in the bathroom, Preston accidentally knocks his last dose of Prozium onto the floor where it breaks. His son witnesses this and orders his father to report the Equilibrium Center to replace his dose. Preston dutifully complies, but the closest facility was bombed by terrorists, and his over-eager partner picks him up for a raid before Preston can find the nearby facility. The raid is at a woman's apartment, Mary, who has been hoarding contraband in a secret room. During the proceedings, Preston finds himself taken aback when he gets angry at the woman for skipping her dosages of Prozium, and then later when Mary grabs hold of a pistol, when he prevents Brandt from killing her. During her interrogation, Mary asks Preston what the purpose of his existence is, but he gives a circular and half-hearted answer.

That evening, Preston skips yet another dose and wakes frightened from his sleep. He looks up at his window and sees the sun rising. Desperate, he tears down the filtering screen against the glass pane and sees the beauty of the sunrise, only to realize with horror that he is feeling. He is on the brink of dosing himself when he thinks better of it and allows himself to fall into the addiction of emotion.

Like I mentioned before before there is a difference between emulating something and comprehending it. Director Kurt Wimmer seems to have understood the importance of dystopian fiction, but doesn't seem to quite get WHY it's so important. In the first fifteen minutes he pilfers 1984, Brave New World and Fahrenheit 451 with the same sloppy methodology as a kindergartner that's making a collage out of your favorite magazines. Just because people like ninjas, pirates, and monkeys doesn't mean that a movie with monkey ninja-pirates will come off terribly well in the theaters.

Inexplicably, this movie has a fairly solid cast with one exception – Taye Diggs. I like him as an actor, but the only way I can describe his character in this movie is “flamboyantly unemotional.” The man simply CANNOT withhold himself and every time he has a close up, his deadpan expression melts into a caricature of itself, as if inwardly he's thinking “I'm being SO expressionless right now. Check out, Mr. Spock over here! I've got zero emotion right now!”

As with other movies I've seen, this could've been done much better if the director didn't rely so much on the material that he was plagiarizing. Kurt Wimmer tries making the film both a “thinker” and “action-packed” - but has no inspiration behind either. The thinking aspects are all archetypes that have been hammered to the ground hundreds of times before and aren't presented with even a modest attempt to put a new spin on them. Conversely, the action sequences seem to all spawn from the “wouldn't it look cool if they did this?” variety, but unfortunately it keeps crossing the line from barely plausible to utterly silly. Plus, I don't think it a good sign that I got bored during a gunfight. Most of the moves were inspired by “The Matrix”; however unlike that movie, it's the ACTION that looks contrived, rather than the philosophy.

There are a few good moments in the film, but they only last a few seconds. A great scene has the Clerics raiding a compound only to find a kennel with dogs in the back. Confused, Brandt asks if the resistance has been using them for food when it's obvious to the audience that they aren't because pets (and the emotional attachment they give) would be illegal in that society. But such things are few and far between and quickly get eclipsed by Wimmer's technical incompetency (a significant plot point is ruined because two major scenes are shown in the wrong order) and lackluster script control (there's no emotion in Libria, but apparently people still swear?). Once again I wonder how this would've been handled in more capable hands.

Line of the movie: “If we keep burning all this contraband, eventually there won't be anything left to burn. What'll there be for men like us?” You'll probably have to take up knitting, pard.

Two stars. Chew slowly.

Aguirre, The Wrath Of God (1972)

(Originally released as Aguirre, Der Zorn Gottes)

Starring: Klaus Kinski,

First, the Lowdown: A madman leads a party of conquistadors in search of El Dorado.

Before the Spanish came, the Inca (much like the Aztecs and Mayans) thought of themselves as the pinnacle of civilization. Both culturally and scientifically advanced over their primitive cousins in the surrounding jungles, they felt secure in their magnificence. Then Francisco Pizarro came, with hundreds of soldiers – all armed with gunpowder, refined steel, and influenza. Soon even the leaders of the Inca were now humbled by this unstoppable threat. This is probably why they encouraged the rumors of El Dorado.

El Dorado, or “the Gilded One”, actually refers to a mythical ritual in which a priest would cover himself with gold dust as an offering to the local goddess as well as tossing gold craft work into a lagoon as sacrifice. This later would be interpreted as a folk tale of a hidden land, much like Avalon or Atlantis. The Inca never really believed in a lost palace made entirely of gold, it just made a good story to tell the foreigners. After being culled by the gold-crazed Spanish, it probably wasn't hard to revive the old legend and place a new spin on it. Rather than being a fabled lagoon with gold sacrifices piled on its floor, the Inca claimed it was an actual place. My guess is that it started as a practical joke that quickly got out of hand; and before long, many of the scholarly saw it as a way of disposing of the Spanish once and for all. Rather than having the arrogant and grabby Spaniards plundering their homelands and enslaving their people, why not point them in a vague direction along the Amazon and have them fall prey to the dangers of the inhospitable jungle and brutal natives that lived there?

In 1560, a party of explorers lead by Gonzalo Pizarro (Francisco’s half-brother) decided to search of this legendary city themselves. So confident in his ability to dominate the New World, Pizarro set about this expedition with a multitude of slaves, soldiers, clergy, servants, lackeys, artillery and women. As we watch them make their way down a steep and treacherous mountain path, we see how mistaken they were – one of their cannons falls to the side and explodes. To underscore just how much they underestimated the surrounding land when they approach the Amazon, they find it a raging torrent of muddy water. Undeterred, Pizarro is resolute in finding a way across; Aguirre, one of his lieutenants, disagrees.

It's only later when they realize how right Aguirre was. The native guides begin to die of pneumonia (probably brought over from the Spanish) and the further they trudge into the jungle, the more they become bogged down by the mud. Eventually Pizarro himself has misgivings about their quest. After much consideration, Pizarro assembles forty of his men and assigns them the task of traveling down the river to scout ahead, find food, and hopefully more information about the whereabouts of El Dorado. They must return in a week, however, otherwise he will call the entire expedition off. Among his men he chooses: Ursua (who will be accompanied by his wife Inez), Aguirre (who will be accompanied by his daughter, Flores), Guzman (a noble descendant of the Castilian royal house) and Brother Gaspar de Carvajal whose diary provides the narration for this journey.

It isn't long until trouble starts. On the first day of the journey, one of the rafts gets caught in an eddy by the shore and the men on board cannot free themselves from it. Ursua sends a group of men to help them out (a process that will take a day or two), but Aguirre wants to leave them and press onwards. In the night shots ring out and the next day the group finds the men on the raft dead, shot by their own muskets. Ursua orders that the men's bodies be brought back for a Christian burial, which rankles Aguirre for its inefficiency. In defiance, Aguirre tells one of his men to clean out the cannon they brought with them – by firing it at the raft carrying the dead men's bodies.

The next morning they group awakes to find that the river has swollen by 15 feet and their rafts have drifted off! Aguirre orders the men to cut down trees for lumber and salvage any spare metal they can for nails to make a new raft, but Ursua wants to cut his losses and go back. Aguirre is determined on finding El Dorado, though, and he organizes a mutiny among the men. Further emboldened, Aguirre appoints Guzman as the Emperor of El Dorado once they find it. However, as they travel along, it becomes more and more obvious that Aguirre is the one in control.

As a summary, the movie sounds almost inspired, but as a movie itself, it left me with much to be desired. Director Werner Herzog is very technically accomplished and his shots are lovely as usual. But for a movie that's barely 90 minutes, it feels about twice as long. And in some ways it works in the film's favor, a perilous journey plods along gruelingly and takes us along with it. In doing so however, my temperament went from “this is an interesting way to portray a doomed expedition” to “this is boring me to tears.” At one point I found myself craving action of some kind, to be only lukewarmly rewarded by a siege of a village – which already had been deserted. In short, I didn't find this movie nearly as gripping as a later film which would borrow much from it: Apocalypse Now.

Line of the movie: “You know, my child, for the good of our Lord, the Church was always on the side of the strong.”

Three stars. Now an excellent source of fiber!