Macabre...ish Horror Review: Equilibrium

Equilibrium, 2002/ 1 hr 47 min. After World War 3, the survivors created a totalitarian city-state called Libria. Here all emotions and emotionally stimulating objects are forbidden and are seen as a disease, the cause of the war, and a disease that can be cured. The population suppresses their emotions with a daily injection of the drug, Prozium 2 and to refuse is a crime. Those that violate the rules are known as Sense Offenders and are punished, the penalty is death. Libria is led by a council, known as Tetragrammaton and led by ‘Father’ (Sean Pertwee) who only communicates via video screens located throughout the city.

Law enforcement are known as Grammaton Clerics and are trained in a martial art, gun kata. They are responsible for law and order inside the city and the outskirts known as Nether, part of their job is to search for and destroy illegal materials (art, literature, music etc.) and execute those hiding them. And there is also a resistance movement simply known as The Underground and their hope is to bring down the council and Father with it.

In 2072, A high ranking cleric, John Preston (Christian Bale), is left a single father after his wife’s execution. After a raid, Preston executes his partner after finding him reading a book of poetry, in the Nethers, instead of turning it in. And after accidentally breaking his vial of Protium, he experiences moments of emotions and memories he’d forgotten. After which, he purposely, skips more doses. His partner, Partridge (Sean Bean) is soon replaced with Brandt (Taye Diggs), a man who admires him but soon becomes suspicious of him when he hesitates to execute a Sense Offender, O’Brien (Emily Watson). He then feels remorse for killing his partner, he ends up meeting the leader of Underground, Jurgen (William Fichtner). Who’s planning to disrupt a shipment of Prozium and once the people can feel, lead and an uprising and convincing Preston that Father should be assassinated. 

Vice Council DuPont alerts Preston to the knowledge that there is a traitor amongst them and tasks him to uncover him. O’Brien is set to be executed and Preston unsuccessfully tries to stop it, then has an emotional break down. Brandt then arrests him, bringing him before Dupont. At which point, Preston convinces him the culprit is Brandt. Juergen has Preston arrest the leaders of the resistance, in order to gain Dupont’s trust, as well as, get closer to Father.

But betrayal is everywhere, you don’t expect it to be.

This is is a good movie! I really enjoyed it! Has a phenomenal cast. Good concept and good pacing. It’s bleak and sterile so there’s no blood baths and goresplosions here. This movie is all story and action, plenty of fight scenes. If you liked the Matrix, then you’ll likely enjoy this movie. 

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