Equilibrium Review

"You know, 1984 was a great book, wasn't it? But I have an idea...what if I replaced all those boring talky parts with explosions and katanas and gunfights? LOTS of gunfights! Wouldn't that be awesome?" I imagine that this was the question Kurt Wimmer posed to himself when he sat down to write one of the lesser known action movies of our time, a 2002 film entitled Equilibrium. Before he was Batman or John Connor, Christian Bale starred in Equilibrium as Grammaton Cleric John Preston, an elite police officer in the dystopian future city-state of Libria, where the populace is kept docile by a combination of an all-encompassing totalitarian dictatorship and regular injections of an emotion-inhibiting drug called Prozium. Clerics such as Preston are trained extensively in swordfighting and a new form of martial arts known as "gun-kata" to find and eliminate the citizens who do not take Prozium and are thus still capable of exhibiting emotion (called "sense-offenders" in the film). The story begins as Preston discovers that his partner is one of these "sense-offenders," and he wastes no time in dispatching him. The film then follows Preston as his doubts surface, he ceases his Prozium regimen, and he begins to question the system that he plegdged his life to uphold. The narrative works best without the dialogue, when the imagery of Libria is fully exposed to the viewer, combining a dystopian lack of color, a juxtaposition of cleanliness with filth, and the symbolism of reflection and obscurity. When the dialogue decides to appear, however, the film begins to tear apart at the seams. However, no one should be watching Equilibrium for its story. The action sequences in Equilibrium are well-choreographed, exciting, and brutal all at once. Keep in mind that the Matrix was still very new at the time, and Equilibrium cannot really be called a rip-off in that sense. John Preston is something of a modern-day Rambo, gunning down scores of faceless minions in practically every scene. One cannot help but enjoy a particular sequence where Preston effortlessly dispatches a dozen heavily armed men using nothing but the butts of his twin handguns, bashing in their faces and swatting away their machine guns like they were children's toys. This film is a love letter to the sort of action film which now permate the public consciousness; I daresay that had Equilibrium been released earlier, it may have become more well-known than it is today. As it stands, Equilibrium will be remembered by those with a love for on-screen ultraviolence; it's a competent and worthwhile demonstration thereof.