(Movie) Can you teach a robot to love? A look at Equilibrium

Thanks to Bill Andres for this recommendation. This one's a favourite for him, so it's a pleasure to review it!

I've seen this once before, eons ago when I was around 17 or so. However, it never really stuck in my mind. 

I do put that down moreso to the fact that I'm an easily distracted person (See the gaps between review dates if you don't believe me,) so I was willing to give the movie another shot. 

Is it as underrated as Bill has claimed? 

Let's see! 

Story/ Dialogue: Set in an alternate world to ours, in the city of Libria, this world is dominated by a fascist government known as the Tetragrammaton. (The symbol for this society is quite similar to the Nazi's swastika,) The Tetragrammaton have stomped out emotions by injecting a drug called Prozium on the basis of suppressing negative emotions. Anyone seen feeling, listening to music, or housing art is charged with a sense offence and is sent to the incinerator. Those who enforce the new laws regarding emotions are known as Tetragrammaton Clerics.

The best of these Clerics, John Preston, tries to deal with these emotions after he misses a dosage. The movie follows Preston as he tries to work with the resistance to bring down the Father; the figurehead of the government.

While this looks good on paper, in practice is dulled by over the top prose and rather weak plot development. It's only until 3/4 of the way through the movie that we meet or are even aware of the Resistance. Futhermore, Preston doesn't come off as someone we can identify with. He's cold, calculated, but even showing his interactions with his family didn't seem to make me connect with him.

While I understand that this is what Prozium does to you in regards to emotions, I feel as though you'd find someone more relatable in a robot. I'd have to wonder how much better received it would have been had we seen this movie from a member of the Resistance's perspective.  

Cinematography: This is where the movie excels. It's well framed, with sweeping pans that show the grand architecture of Germany, where most of the film was shot. Visually, it adds more to the storytelling than the dialogue ever could. One of my favourite shots is when Preston kills his partner and it switches focus from Preston's boss to his sword, where a single drop of blood falls of the end of edge. I think the only part that confused me was the moment where he was looking at the matte painting from the window. I suppose it could have been symbolism for him feeling something, but it ruined the suspension of disbelief. 

Audio: The tracks throughout the film tended to jump between rock music and a choir to represent the dogmatic beliefs of an iron fisted government. The sound effects were covered well, given the jump cutting fight scenes. 

Overall: As I said in the story segment of this review, Equilibrium is a fantastic idea in theory, but in the same way a man tries to behead a criminal with a spoon, is subject to poor execution. 

With that said, the Gun Kata concept is excellent and I'd love to see it refined in a future movie.

While I struggled a lot with this film, I did enjoy it and learned a lot from watching it. 

So I'm going to give it a solid 3 stars.

Thanks again to Bill for his recommendation of a film that is underrated and a good study focus. 

His artwork is amazing! Give his facebook page a like:

https://www.facebook.com/wasillustrations/

That's it from me! Until next time, folks!