A senseless world

We wanted to watch Equilibrium because it had both Christian Bale and Taye Diggs.

The fight sequences are great. But the movie tries a little too hard to be both The Matrix and 1984. The general idea: it is the future! Civilization has avoided war by eliminating feelings, which cause things like anger and jealousy and rage. A Big Brother-like leader runs the country, and everybody has to take a drug that makes them stop feeling. But there's a rebellious underground, consisting of people who stop taking the drug (they're called "sense-offenders.")

Christian Bale and Taye Diggs are "clerics" who run around burning books and art and anything that can evoke sense or feelings in humans. For some reason, sense-offenders are packrats who hoard all of these objects behind walls. At any rate, Christian Bale goes off his meds, and all sorts of stuff goes down. There's a woman he's interested in. He saves a puppy. It's all rather funny.

There are a ton of logical inconsistencies with the film (the biggest being that all the characters exhibit feelings.) There are also a lot of questions. Is the film trying to make a statement about overly drugging individuals (à la Garden State, where Zack Braff is a zombie until he stops taking Prozac)? Is it anti-censorship? Antiwar? Anti-pharmaceutical? It's none of these things, in the end. But it's a fun thing to watch with a group and pick apart. While staring at Christian Bale.