Equilibrium is a RAD MOVIE!
If you like seeing geometry in action, especially in the form of martial arts and gun-fighting, then Equilibrium is a great Sci-Fi/Action Film pick. Equilibrium is a movie distributed by Miramax Films and Dimension Films. The movie is a about an emotionless nation-state in a partially dystopian future. Christian Bale, does an excellent job with his performance of the main character, who is a Tetragrammaton Cleric named, John Preston. The movie has elements that are similar to the Matrix and the book Fahrenheit 451, but it is its own unique spin on things. Instead of the enemy being oppressive robots or a system that wants to destroy information, the world depicted in the film is obsessed with destroying emotion evoking items, music, and other media. The thing that the film does the best with the theme and back-story, is that Equilibrium clearly explains the motivations for the government to wish to eradicate such emotional content. And that motivation is a fear of a 4th World War. Yet the system does not just attempt to destroy the emotion inspiring media, it wants to eliminate human emotion entirely through the regimented and society-wide use of pharmaceutical drugs.
Even though Equilibrium was released in 2002, the fact that everyone is on emotion impairing drugs is more relevant today than it was during its release date.
An interesting thing about this movie is that it was attempted to be sold as an action film. Although the few action scenes are quite good, the themes are even better. Some of those themes include, harsh self-realizations, man vs. himself, and self-sacrifice even when the outcome is completely unknown.
One thing that I’ve found with Equilibrium is that it is not actually a social commentary film. Many people may get turned off by the film because they think it is being critical of the current society. When in fact, our society right now does not resemble the culture of Libria (this is the main city in the film) except for the drug issue previously mentioned. The film is more of a vehicle for someone to re-evaluate his or her current life processes and see if that’s the road that they really want to walk. All the gun battles and violence is actually symbolic of internal struggle, and the entire film could have been a virtual experience for the main character and it would have had the same poignant impact for the viewer.
The use of geometry as a tool for gun-based martial arts was beyond awesome and was a perfect story-telling technique. It easily demonstrated the level of skill, expertise and discipline required for the main character to be such an effective marksman and soldier. This gave a substantial amount of mythos to the Cleric fighters in the film. And the slower and more dramatic scenes were a welcomed break from the action. Some people may say that the movie is slow and plodding, but I found it to methodical and quite clear when discussing serious issues.
-Tyler