Equilibrium (2002)

Summary:
Equilibrium is a film about a dystopian society starring Christian Bale as John Preston, a member of the society's law enforcement who begins to question his actions and role in the society.

John Preston (Christian Bale)

More descriptively, the society forbids feeling emotions and partaking in actions which elicit emotions (such as drawing/viewing art and reading literature/poetry). This is regulated by Clerics, the society's law enforcement, who find and destroy any objects which may promote feelings as well as executing the people associated to them (hiding/using/etc).

Brandt (Taye Diggs)


20130416:
The first time I watch this movie was in high school, but I don't remember why. One reasonable scenario is that someone brought the movie in and we watched it during the AP Exams. Another reasonable scenario is that the AP English teacher showed it to us after reading a book about a dystopian society (probably 1984 by George Orwell).

...Uncrossed and...
...Crossed and...

This movie can, every now and then, be over the top. For example, the scene where Bale walks down a hallway shooting the screens at his sides. At first it was cool when I watched him do it, but when I thought about how he did it (repeatedly crossed and uncrossed his arms), I realized it was quite impractical.

Preston and Errol Partridge (Sean Bean)

One plot element I didn't understand was in regards to the scene where the kid reveals he took the serum from the cabinet. Where did he put them instead such that they weren't found by the soldiers? Also, while it makes for good exposition, the kid presents a risk to himself when revealing the vials to his father.


In any case, I also wondered why his new partner didn't catch on to his plans earlier, but the the movie actually explains why.

On a different note, I liked the anti-climatic fight between the protagonist and his new partner at the end. I suppose this was foreshadowed by their earlier dual using plastic weapons. Outmatched.

Vice-Counsel Dupont (Angus MacFadyen) and Preston

Oh, actually I have a different plot question: why wasn't the protagonist searched for weapons?

Overall, I watched this movie again for the third or so time because the gun kata (ficticious gun martial arts found in Equilibrium) is just awesome to watch and if you like action movies then you should check it out too.

[20130507]

Watched at least twice before.
Watched 20130416 (Netflix, Instant)
Equilibrium (2002) Kurt Wimmer. 107 min

Robbie Preston (Matthew Harbour)

Relevant Links:
Equilibrium (IMDb.com)
Equilibrium (RottenTomatoes.com)
Equilibrium (film) (Wikipedia.org)

No comments :