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.