It took all of 15 minutes to realize that there wasn't going to be an original idea in this movie. Everything is cribbed from somewhere else and cobbled into an ultimately brainless excuse for violence - and even the violence is ripped off from Quentin Tarantino's worst excesses.
"Equilibrium" is a mess. It is set in a bleak post apocalyptic society ( yawn ) in which emotional feelings are a crime, to be controlled by a sense numbing drug called Prozium. ( Prozac and Librium, get it? ) The look is typically neo-fascist and dominated by the color black, making it reminiscent particularly of "1984", but probably a half dozen other movies as well. Elite squads - I don't recall what they're called now and I don't really care - go around burning great books and art ( the Mona Lisa just happens to be available for torching in the opening scenes ) and exterminating the offenders, just for good measure. The torching part is stolen straight from Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451". There are also numerous Spockisms taken from Star Trek. Well, you get the idea.
In the midst of all this is Christian Bale, he of the baleful looks. Chris really stretches here as he manages to out deadpan all of his previous deadpan performances. Wow, I'm impressed! Just to give you a single example of this film's many inconsistencies in logic - and they are legion - the citizens are supposed to be without emotion. Yet after the leader gives a rabble rousing speech, everyone cheers. It's all like that, folks.
There is one scene roughly three quarters of the way through where Bale's rebel character seems to be caught in a hopeless situation, ala Winston Smith in "1984" after he is taken to Room 101. However, instead of a bleak encounter where our hero is broken and defeated, "Eqiullibrium" opts for a gala ~ you guessed it - shootout. Whoopie!! Not only is this glitzy and high tech, as expected, it drags on interminably, pretty much making up the last quarter of the of the film.
So, there you have it. To be avoided at all costs by anyone with a functioning brain.
"Equilibrium" is a mess. It is set in a bleak post apocalyptic society ( yawn ) in which emotional feelings are a crime, to be controlled by a sense numbing drug called Prozium. ( Prozac and Librium, get it? ) The look is typically neo-fascist and dominated by the color black, making it reminiscent particularly of "1984", but probably a half dozen other movies as well. Elite squads - I don't recall what they're called now and I don't really care - go around burning great books and art ( the Mona Lisa just happens to be available for torching in the opening scenes ) and exterminating the offenders, just for good measure. The torching part is stolen straight from Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451". There are also numerous Spockisms taken from Star Trek. Well, you get the idea.
In the midst of all this is Christian Bale, he of the baleful looks. Chris really stretches here as he manages to out deadpan all of his previous deadpan performances. Wow, I'm impressed! Just to give you a single example of this film's many inconsistencies in logic - and they are legion - the citizens are supposed to be without emotion. Yet after the leader gives a rabble rousing speech, everyone cheers. It's all like that, folks.
There is one scene roughly three quarters of the way through where Bale's rebel character seems to be caught in a hopeless situation, ala Winston Smith in "1984" after he is taken to Room 101. However, instead of a bleak encounter where our hero is broken and defeated, "Eqiullibrium" opts for a gala ~ you guessed it - shootout. Whoopie!! Not only is this glitzy and high tech, as expected, it drags on interminably, pretty much making up the last quarter of the of the film.
So, there you have it. To be avoided at all costs by anyone with a functioning brain.