Christian Heaven ’23

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The movie Equilibrium is set in a futuristic world where a regime has eliminated war and hatred by suppressing emotions. Books, art, music, and emotion-filled relationships are banned.

The main character John Preston, played by Christian Bale, is a top-ranking government agent (Clerick) who is responsible for destroying those who resist the rules (The Resistance). At one point, Preston begins to miss his doses of Prozium, a mind altering drug that helps with the suppression of emotion. Consequently, Preston, who had been trained to destroy emotion, has suddenly become capable of protecting it.

The movie excels in its futuristic sci-fi feel. It gives the viewer action-packed battles and a deep dive into the human need for emotion. The connections between the characters are the best parts of the movie along with seeing how John gets out of the sticky situations he gets himself into.

Still, Equilibrium is not perfect. The pacing of the movie is very inconsistent and may be hard to follow in some instances. The CGI is a bit lackluster. Some viewers will view the movie as borrowing too much from other sources such as the 1999 Blockbuster The Matrix.

I rate Equilibrium 7.4/10. The movie has a lot of high points such as its dynamics between characters but falls short in many other aspects such as pacing. For this, the movie falls lower than many of its genre such as Minority Report, Men in Black II, and Solaris.