Supposedly the best movie ever made... ever!
Ok, so last week I walk into the local comic bookstore, and this ComicBookGuy is sitting there watching a movie. I can't tell if he works there or what. But it's a comic bookstore, so it could be anybody's guess. (He could be homeless, unemployed, and simply a friend of the owner. He could be an alien from another galaxy. You know how comic bookstores are... strange people there. Although, he was on the more normal side.)

Naturally, I ask, "What are you watching?"

ComicBookGuy proceeds to tell me he's watching Equilibrium and that it's the best movie ever made... ever! I ask what it's about, yada, yada, yada, meow, meow, meow. He describes the premise to me. I decide it sounds pretty cool, tell Steve about it, et voila... Here's a review of it for you.

Straight to video?
I have no idea when or if this film was ever in theatres. You can rent it at Blockbuster, though; it just arrived there this week or last.

The film's pretty cool. It's Fahrenheit 451 meets The Matrix. In a near-future world, WWW III has already came and went. (Of course, *sigh*.) To prevent any future wars and to rid the world of hate and violence altogether, everyone takes this drug to keep them from feeling. The idea being that all violence stems from human emotion. (False logic, I think, but ok I'll go with it.) And, instead of "thought police" like in 1984 or Fahrenheit... this world has "sense police" - a specially trained fighting unit whom can sense what others are feeling. They're called Gammatron Clerics, a cross between police and priest.

The Clerics have some great fight scenes, all choreographed with Kung Fu. I don't know what style. In the movie, they give the fighting style a made-up name. But, I'll get to that later. And the fight scenes don't go quite so far into the realm of that's-not-humanly-possible as much as The Matrix, or say, Crouching Tiger... does. Which is refreshing. Don't get me wrong; I love The Matrix and Crouching Tiger, but Equilibrium is set in a world a little bit more based on realism. Just a little bit though... It IS near future sci-fi, after all.

Gunkarta sounds like a M!crosoft mapping software
They call the fighting style in the movie Gunkarta. Get it? Gun Karta? The way of the gun? So, that brings me to the negative aspects of the film. It's obviously very derivative. The acting's not so hot. The dialogue's a little over-the-top melodramatic. It's a little transparent. Of course, the "new society" in the film is a thinly veiled analogy for the evils of Nazism and Communism. And, the movie drags a little toward the end.

Ok, now that the bad points are out of the way... I actually like this movie. It's cool. It's not the best movie ever made. (Don't tell ComicBookGuy, I wrote that.) But, I liked it. Has some great visuals. Cool fight scenes. And, I think the twist from "thought police" to "sense police" is neat. Makes one think. If you get a chance and you like this sort of story, rent it.