by Ted Sherman

Created on: August 12, 2008

In the 2003 movie, "Equilibrium", the setting is in a fascistic city-society called Libria, somewhere in the not-too-distant future. It is after the devastation of World War III, and the government forces everyone to suppress all feelings and show no emotions nor caring for others.

The world is under the control of The Father and his gang. Sort of like the George Orwell 1949 book and movie, "1984" revisited, where an all-seeing "Big Brother" controls everything and brutally suppresses all dissent.

The leaders of the inaptly named Libria, (there's no liberty nor library there), have eliminated learning, art, books and all education that could upset the perfect mindless equilibrium of their tight social structure. Within the prison-like, high-rise structures, officials closely monitor citizens so that everyone follows all orders blindly or dies.

In the similar futuristic Charlton Heston movie, "Soylent Green" of 1973, the gimmick was that the obedient hordes of humanity were now so numerous that they had to be swept away by bulldozers. Survivors subsisted on a mysterious green food, called soylent green. Heston discovers to his horror that the food consisted of reprocessed human bodies.

In "Equilibrium", the citizens are kept docile and expressionless by being required to take heavy doses of Prozium. It's not a coincidence that it sounds too much like the current all-purpose, mind-bending, despression-chasing prescription drug, Prozac. Those white-coated guys at Eli Lilly could have either laughed about the obvious connection or sent their lawyers after the movie's producers.

Before he put on his Batsuit for "The Dark Knight", former child actor ("Empire of the Sun") Christian Bale is at first the stone-faced officer of the state, John Preston. His duty is to suppress by deadly force all emotions and other threats to the imposed equilibrium.

Without emotion himself, he feels no guilt about serving as judge, jury and executioner by gun of those he believes are breaking the rules by showing love, compassion, pity or any other of those evil habits. Because he can't shoot all so-called "sense offenders" by himself, he and his fellow enforcers get others herded off to incinerators. In fact, several years previously, he or another official sent his wife, mother to Preston's two children, to suffer the same fate. To loyal state enforcer Preston, the terrible act is ... so what. Sort of reminds one of the excuses those murderous German officers and prison guards gave after World War II, "We were only following orders."

Then, as in all of these futuristic films, and has happened to characters portrayed by Heston, Richard Burton and Arnold Schwartzenegger, Christain Bale's John Preston has a change of heart. In fact, after failing to take his required Prozac ... I mean Prozium ... he suddenly gets smart to the horrors of the regime, while at the same time his newly-emotional heart is captured by sexy revolutionary, Mary O'Brien (Emily Watson).

Now with heavy-breathing emotions and a conscience, a newly noble Preston begins a sabotage campaign to destroy The Father's equilibrium-enforced regime. After lots of ninja-like fights, explosions and killings, Preston defects to join the underground movement (they actually hang out underground) and helps to rescue the world from the bad guys. Then he can go live emotionally happily ever after with Mary O'Brien.

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