Viking Night: Equilibrium
By Bruce Hall
October 7, 2014
Preston is a bad mofo, but even people without emotions carry baggage. His wife was executed as a sense offender, and his son is in Cleric school, already learning how to make murder look totally awesome. And by the way, if you're wondering how a world without emotion comes by things like "husbands," "wives," "children" and "hot sticky monkey sex," you're not alone. However it happened, Preston has a family and his superiors never let him forget that he failed to notice his wife was a lawbreaker. Eager to redeem himself, Preston doubles down on paranoia and soon sniffs out his own partner as a "sense offender." Partridge has a weakness for poetry and when confronted, willingly confesses, and gladly pays the price. Unable to feel emotion, Preston takes it in stride - until he accidentally misses his dose of Feel-B-Gone the next morning. I guess Prozium isn't very potent, because almost immediately, things start to happen.
Preston begins dreaming about his wife, feeling sorrow at her loss. He feels guilt over having to kill his partner. He feels awe and wonder at the sight of a sunrise. For the first time in his life, he understands what it is to feel - and it's addictive. He goes off the Dose and starts doing wild things like rearranging his desk at work. Impressed with the way Preston shot his own partner in the face, his bosses assign him a new sidekick, an opportunistic recruit named Brandt (Taye Diggs). Their mission is to root out the Resistance by any means necessary, and eliminate them for good. The problem is, Preston's new emotions make it hard to be ruthless, and his partner begins to seem like more than just a partner.
You want tension? Imagine a dedicated Nazi suddenly realizing what an evil douchebag he is, but still having to punch a clock and murder innocent men, women and puppies every day?
For the most part, Equilibrium is an entertaining but unremarkable story about an oppressive post apocalyptic society and the one unlikely hero who alone can bring it down - a story we've seen and read a hundred times. But does that really matter? There IS a story here, and the one thing that keeps it interesting is Christian Bale. Taye Diggs does an absolutely horrible job of acting like he has no feelings, to the point where you want to yell "bullshit" at the screen every time he speaks. But Bale turns in a finely nuanced performance, believably portraying a man who is slowly learning to emote for the first time, and coming to grips with the fact that most of his first feelings are the worst ones.
No, this is not The Fighter, for which Bale won an Academy award. But he’s easily the best thing about the movie and it’s mainly his performance that keeps the rather ordinary story compelling. The second best thing about Equilibrium is “gun-kata." If you’ve been waiting for someone to combine kung-fu with automatic weapons, your wait is over, my friend. Wimmer’s direction is unremarkable. Klaus Badelt’s score contains one memorable theme, while the remainder sounds like a thoroughly average video game soundtrack. But the only thing better than watching people get their Bruce Lee on with guns would be if they also had lightsabers.
Wow. I need a shower after what I just imagined.
This is a surprisingly engaging movie that had the misfortune of looking very much like a clone of The Matrix. It was a 700 megaton bomb at the box office, and garnered very mixed reviews at the time. But thematically, it’s got more to chew on than you’d expect, and it’s a lot of fun to see Christian Bale before he was Christian Bale, carrying a film in his back and raising all the boats around him. Equilibrium doesn’t break down any walls, but it’s got some fun moments and if you like science fiction at all, it might be one of the best high concept dystopian thrillers that you’ve never heard of.
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