4 out of 5

Director: Kurt Wimmer

When I first watched Equilibrium, I brushed off the plot as a 1984 rip and talked the action scenes up.  Rewatching this some time later, I sense that writer / director Kurt Wimmer wasn’t so interested in breaking new ground with the plot – he sorta freely goes generic with it, and doesn’t clutter up the dialogue with phrases or moments that are meant to seem particularly deep – but he did want to make an action movie that had more of a reason to exist than big dudes kickin’ patoot.  True enough, this time through I was struck with some of the subtleties of the acting and direction, and wowed more by the artistry of the action than the concept of it.  Equilibrium IS very 1984ish – it’s the future (sorta’), and we’ve decided emotions are evil, so we burn all emotion causing things and take meds to keep our edges in check.  Of course, there’s an underground of “sense offenders” who need rooting out, so in step the clerics, one of whom is played by Bale, clerics being the best of the unemotive best, so honed in their lack of feeling that they can train in “gun-kata,” which is a cute spin on martial arts, just with guns.  If you approach this movie on the level and try not to read too much into it, there’s some very surprising touches and some pretty snazzy design that works better than the Matrix ’cause it’s not so over the top, just sleek enough.  At the same time, it definitely gets silly here and there, and ends with a pretty sudden bang, but it’s hard to not want to take it that direction once the ball gets rolling.  Bale is perfectly cast, and Diggs finds a good outlet for his regular monotone delivery.  This film still makes me believe that whatever the original concept for Ultraviolet was was probably a good movie.