Rating: 7.5/10
Review date: December 17, 2003
Set in a futuristic world, Libria is a society where all sorts of emotions and feelings are suppressed and punishable by death. Cleric John Preston is a high-ranking government agent who is responsible for destroying those who resists. He begins to question the regime he is serving and seek answers after he personally executed his partner who has broken the rule by reading poems�
Director Kurt Wimmer has shot a movie that doesn�t proclaim to be original; instead it is laden with references and homage to various books and other sci-fi movies.
Equilibrium draws inspiration from �1984� by George Orwell where a totalitarian regime has been installed to suppress all feelings and �Fahrenheit 451� by Ray Bradbury where all sorts of objects deemed offensive were burned. Throw a little bit of �The Matrix� into the mix and there you have �Equilibirum.�
The gun fights are pretty solid and some scenes are quite original in my opinion. This means I�ve never seen the said scenes in other movies before although I could be wrong.
Christian Bale performs his role as Cleric John Preston convincingly, sporting a cool attitude with a slick-looking hair and dark-colored coat. His expression was good especially during the transition period where he begin to doubt the system and rebel.
Taye Diggs (Cleric Brandt) falls flat on his role, along with Angus MacFadyen (Dupont) who is the worse of the two. Both of them are not convincing as villains; not even an expressionless one.
Sean Bean is excellent in his limited role as Cleric Partridge although I wish that he would have change position with Taye Diggs; the former one would make a more charming and plausible antagonist. Another cast worth mentioning is Emily Watson as Mary O�Brien who managed to convey some emotions despite her short screen time.
Despite whatever criticism of unoriginality it receives, Equilibrium remains a very entertaining movie to me. It is essentially a movie adaptation of �1984� with plenty of guns and a slick-looking Christian Bale kicking plenty of asses. You get the idea?
I do have one gripe though; the ending could have been better in my opinion if it ends the opposite way because the current ending feels a bit too �easy� and unrealistic.
*Trivia*
Director Kurt Wimmer has a cameo as the silhouetted figure in the movie�s opening scene where the Grammaton Cleric is first introduced.
Leonardo DiCaprio was originally cast as Cleric John Preston. He was replaced by Christian Bale after the former left for Gangs of New York (2002), which was filmed at the same time as this movie.
Memorable quote: �I live to safeguard the continuity of this society, to serve Libria.�
-Christian Bale as Cleric John Preston-
(c) Martin Taidy