Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Equilibrium Review

As of the writing of this review, Equilibrium has a 37% approval rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes. By contrast, Minority Report has a 93%, Titanic has 87%, and Avatar has 83%. Critcis critisize Equilibrium for being stupid. So... why do those three insults to human intelligence have such a high rating? As a matter of fact, Equilibrium isn't even bad, and it certainly raises a lot more genuinely thought-provoking questions that all three of them combined. It's flawed and uneven, but overall, it's good. 

The story starts after a third world war in a city-state known as Libria. After the war, one unified government took control and looked for the cause for the destruction in order to prevent it. The answer? Emotion. Faith. Opinions. Everything that seperates us from machines and makes us the imperfect beings that we are: humans. Yes, it was our own humanity that started this war. And so, Libria produces a drug that eliminates all emotions and forces their citizens to take it. 

Of course, most people eventually comform and sell their souls. However, predictably, not everyone does, and this is where the plot begins. Interestingly enough, the writers made a surprsing choice to tell start the story off not from the point of view of the rebels, but of a comformist named John Preston. He is a cleric, or assassin who deals with "sense-offenders"; those who reject the drug in return for their own humanity. Father, the universal dictator of the land, sends him and other clerics off to deal with the rebellion. 

Two things instantly struck me at the beginning of this story: one, the concept is amazing. The fact that the movie mostly deals with emotionless characters and still stays interesting throughout is a miracle in itself. Just watching John do his job at the beginning of the film and seeing just how cold he and everyone else has become is intriguing, especially when his partner ends up "betraying" him and stops taking the drug, forcing John to kill him with no regret. On a storytelling level, it all begins very well. 

Unfortunately, this is also where my first gripe with the movie comes up. Note that, as an action fan, I find this aspect of the film to be freakishly awesome; however, from an objective, reviewing stance, the action scenes don't fit with the thoughtful story. We have asssassins who are essentially ninjas with guns. Again, awesome, but how does that fit into what the movie is actually about? It just... doesn't. 
Harrison Carsh, January 20, 2013 

Anyway, we soon learn that John does, to an extent, feel emotion as he dreams. His wife died, and as he sleeps, the feeling of loss finds it's way to him somehow. So much, in fact, that the next morning, he skips out on his drug dose after the canister breaks, and decides to not replace it, intrigued the feeling of... feeling for the first time. 

And my goodness, this is handled EXCEPTIONALLY. During the sequence, John slowly becomes more and more human. He feels regret for murdering his partner. The loss of his wife huants him. The robotic actions of everyone, even his own children, begins eating him away. Finally, in perhaps the greatest scene in the movie (and personally one of my favorite scenes ever), John discovers a stash of artwork. Snowglobes. Paintings. Music. He cries for the first time in his whole life, realizing that it will all burn. And it does, with him watching. He realizes that the government is waging war on the human mind itself. And so, he sets to bring it down. Will the world be perfect? No. It will be even less "perfect" technically than it is under Father's control. Emotion is dangerous. But if we remove it, what are we? 

Thus, the movie, at it's core, a story of us. If we remove emotion, there would be no war, no pain, no heartbreak. By all means, it would be a more effecient way to exist. But the point of the movie is that it would simply be existed; without feeling, one cannot truly live. 

This topic is explored, and it's endlessly interesting, as is the story itself. However, there are flaws. I don't think that they necessarily ruin the movie by any means, but they do damage it. I already mentioned the action sequences; they're cool, but out of place. The other problem that I have is generally exclusive to the final act; it concludes dar too quickly. An exposition would have given the movie a knockout punch; instead, the final battle ends, and it's all over. I really wanted to see what the ending of the story meant for the world; the movie more than implies what it means, but for a movie that stresses the importance of feeling, the ending is ironically robotic. Just 5-10 more minutes worth of screenplay would have done the film good.

As it is, however, Equilibrium is a good movie. Even when its at its absolute worst, it never gets boring; and when its at its absolute best, its enthralling. So, in conclusion, while still quite a bit unbalanced and lazy in areas, Equilibrium is worth at least one viewing. It won't be the most memorable or incredible movie you'll ever see, but it's a solid action flick with a great message.

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