Equilibrium (2002)

Equilibrium is a 2002 American science fiction dystopian action film written and directed by Kurt Wimmer, and starring Christian Bale, Emily Watson, and Taye Diggs. The film follows Bale as John Preston, an enforcement officer in a future in which feelings and artistic expression are outlawed, and a society where its citizens are forced to take psychoactive drugs to suppress emotion. After accidentally missing a dose, Preston awakens and begins to uncover the suspicious inner workings of the regime governing the totalitarian state.

Miramax Films released Equilibrium theatrically on December 6, 2002. The film was a critical and commercial failure at the box office, though it was ultimately profitable due to international pre-release sales. It received unfavorable reviews and grossed only $5.3 million against a production budget of $20 million, but has garnered a cult status.

Plot

Established by survivors of World War III, the totalitarian city-state of Libria blames human emotion as the root of all conflicts. It strictly outlaws all activities or objects that stimulate emotion, with violators labeled Sense Offenders and sentenced to death. The population has to take a daily injection of the emotion-suppressing drug called Prozium II. Libria is governed by the Tetragrammaton Council, led by "Father", who communicates propaganda through giant video screens. The police force is led by the Grammaton Clerics, elite fighters trained in the art of gun kata. Clerics frequently raid homes to search for and destroy illegal materials – art, literature and music – executing violators on the spot. A resistance movement, known as the "Underground", emerges to topple Father and the Tetragrammaton Council.

In 2072, John Preston is a high-ranking Cleric whose wife, Viviana, was executed as a Sense Offender, leaving him as a single parent of two. Following a raid, Preston's partner Errol Partridge saves a book of poems by W. B. Yeats instead of turning it in for incineration. He follows Partridge to the Nether – a term for regions outside the city – and finds him reading the book. Seeing Preston, Partridge claims he gladly pays the price of feeling emotion. Preston executes Partridge.

Preston accidentally breaks his last vial of Prozium and is unable to refill them before the next raid. Brief episodes of emotion set in evoking memories, stirring feelings, and making him more aware of his surroundings. He intentionally skips additional doses of Prozium, hiding them behind his bathroom mirror. Partridge is replaced with an ambitious, career-conscious Brandt, who admires Preston's work as a Cleric. On a raid, they arrest Sense Offender Mary O'Brien. Preston prevents Brandt from executing O'Brien, saying she should be interrogated.

Preston feels remorse for killing Partridge, develops an emotional relationship with O'Brien, and seeks atonement. He uncovers clues that lead to meeting Jurgen, the Underground leader. Jurgen plans to disrupt Prozium production to spark an uprising and convinces Preston that Father must be assassinated. Vice-Counsel DuPont meets with Preston to reveal that there is a traitor in the upper ranks of the Clerics, and assigns Preston the task of unmasking the traitor. Relieved, Preston accepts and promises to locate the Underground's leadership.

When O'Brien is set to be executed, Preston attempts to stop the execution and fails. His memory of his wife's execution triggers an emotional breakdown. Brandt, who has been suspecting Preston of being a Sense Offender, arrests and brings him before DuPont. Preston tricks DuPont into believing that Brandt is the traitor. Preston is told that his home will be searched as a formality. He rushes home to destroy the hidden vials only to discover his son, who stopped taking Prozium after his mother died, already has.

Jurgen tells Preston to capture the resistance leaders to regain Father's trust, hoping it will get him close enough to assassinate Father. Preston is granted an exclusive audience with Father only to discover that Brandt was not arrested; it was part of a ruse to capture Preston and the Underground. DuPont reveals he is Father, having secretly replaced the original Father who died, and that his cabal doesn't take Prozium to suppress emotion. He taunts Preston, asking how it felt to betray the Underground.

Having anticipated the trap, Preston fights his way through an army of bodyguards to DuPont's office, confronting and killing Brandt in a katana battle. DuPont and Preston engage in a gun kata showdown. Preston wins as DuPont pleads for his life, asking "Is it really worth the price?" Paying homage to Partridge's last words, he responds "I pay it gladly" and kills DuPont to satiate his need for revenge. He destroys the command center that broadcasts Father propaganda. Preston watches with satisfaction from above as the Underground destroys Prozium manufacturing plants, signaling the beginning of the revolution.

Cast

Gun kata

Angus Macfadyen's character, Vice-Counsel DuPont, describes the fictional fighting style gun kata in the film:

Through analysis of thousands of recorded gunfights, the Cleric has determined that the geometric distribution of antagonists in any gun battle is a statistically-predictable element. The gun kata treats the gun as a total weapon, each fluid position representing a maximum kill zone, inflicting maximum damage on the maximum number of opponents, while keeping the defender clear of the statistically-traditional trajectories of return fire. By the rote mastery of this art, your firing efficiency will rise by no less than 120 percent. The difference of a 63 percent increased lethal proficiency makes the master of the gun katas an adversary not to be taken lightly.

Kata (型, かた) is a Japanese word for standard forms of movements and postures in karate, jujutsu, aikido, and many other traditional martial arts. The gun kata shown in Equilibrium is a hybrid of Wimmer's own style of gun kata (invented in his backyard).

Production

Initially announced in 1999 under the title of Librium, the film was produced by Jan de Bont's production company, Blue Tulip Productions, with most of the budget secured in a Dutch tax incentive deal thanks to de Bont's Dutch citizenship. Emily Watson was cast in May 2000, with Christian Bale cast the following month in June of that year.

Filming began on October 19, 2000, and ended on December 10, 2000. Most of the filming used locations in Berlin, due to its unique mixture of fascist and modern architecture. According to the visual effects supervisor Tim McGovern, who worked alongside Wimmer, the fascist architecture was chosen "to make the individual feel small and insignificant so the government seems more powerful". The modern architecture of Berlin emphasizes the futuristic and stolid appearance of the city-state of Libria. Thick walls are represented by an abandoned East German military base, while the exterior of the city, where many of the surviving rebels reside, was filmed in decrepit neighborhoods of East Germany. In addition to the geographic location, a few European art directors also made substantial contributions to the production.

Equilibrium's locations include:

Olympic Stadium (Berlin), built for the 1936 Summer Olympics.

Deutschlandhalle, also built for the 1936 Summer Olympics.

Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.

Berlin Tempelhof Airport, construction of which was begun before the Nazi era, but which was completed during World War II and displays characteristics of the Nazis' architectural style.

Bundestag (Berlin U-Bahn) station, a modern subway station near the new Reichstag building along with long tunnels of the Berlin U-Bahn underground railway. At the time the film was made, the Bundestag station was unopened, but in 2009, it went into service.

Decrepit East German neighborhoods, as well as an abandoned massive former GDR military base.

The EUR district in Rome, Italy, built during the fascist rule of Benito Mussolini.

Although making a science fiction movie, Wimmer intentionally avoided using futuristic technology that could become obsolete, and he also decided to set his story in an indeterminate future. "I wanted to create more of an alternate reality than get caught up in the gadgetry of science fiction," he explained. "In fact, there's no technology in Equilibrium that doesn't already exist. It's more like a parallel universe, the perfect setting for a parable."

Reception

Critical response

The review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes reports that 40% of 89 surveyed critics gave the film a positive review; the average rating is 4.8/10. The site's consensus states, "Equilibrium is a reheated mishmash of other sci-fi movies." Metacritic gave the film a score of 33 out of 100, based on reviews from 22 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews. Elvis Mitchell of The New York Times dismissed Equilibrium for having heavily borrowed from Fahrenheit 451, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Brave New World, Logan's Run and other science fiction classics. Roger Ebert awarded the film three stars out of four, noting that, "Equilibrium would be a mindless action picture, except that it has a mind. It doesn't do a lot of deep thinking, but unlike many futuristic combos of sf and f/x, it does make a statement."

Wimmer said in a Dreamwatch interview that "the paying customers seemed to get it", and said the critics "didn't seem to see that the film had a different message than" Fahrenheit 451 or 1984. Responding to the critics' views, Wimmer later said "Why would I make a movie for someone I wouldn't want to hang out with? Have you ever met a critic who you wanted to party with? I haven't."

Box office

The film had an estimated production budget of $20 million. International pre-release sales had already made a profit, so the studio reduced the film's promotion and advertising budget to avoid the risk of the film losing money; as a consequence, theatrical release was limited.

The film was shown in only 301 theaters at its widest release in the United States, earning $541,512 in its opening week, and only $1.2 million when it closed on December 26, 2002; the film earned $4.1 million internationally, for a total of $5.3 million worldwide.

See also

Equals (film)

Turn Me On (film)

List of dystopian films

List of films featuring surveillance

List of films set in the future

References

External links

Equilibrium at IMDb

Equilibrium at Box Office Mojo

Equilibrium at Rotten Tomatoes

Equilibrium at Metacritic