| 75 |
Chicago Sun-Times
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:
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| 70 |
The Onion (A.V. Club)
A terrific cast, stylish direction, and elegantly choreographed mayhem help make it far better than it might have been -- Though ultimately silly, Equilibrium's shopworn but stylish synthesis of ammo and ideas is surprisingly engrossing.
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| 70 |
LA Weekly
The fun here is not so much in the solid if stolid performances from Bale and co-stars Taye Diggs and Emily Watson (gussied up to resemble the Jefferson Airplane–era Grace Slick) or in Wimmer's overpolished plot devices as it is in the production values.
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| 63 |
USA Today
The martial-arts sequences take this prosaic thriller to a higher level.
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| 60 |
Dallas Observer
Equilibrium improves as it rolls along -- either that or, ironically, it wears down the senses until the viewer succumbs.
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| 50 |
Chicago Tribune
Not a picture that makes you think very much -- except to wonder why the studios keep making movies like this.
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| 50 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
A preachy parable stylized with a touch of John Woo bullet ballet.
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| 50 |
New York Daily News
Mostly plays like a routine thriller with a classy cast.
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| 50 |
New York Post
The best thing about Equilibrium is its impressive look. Along with its generally fine cast and some well-choreographed fights, that goes a long way to making the movie watchable -- despite its underlying stupidity.
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| 50 |
Washington Post
Just because it's a good idea doesn't mean it's easy to do well. Screenwriter-turned-director Kurt Wimmer has a hard time keeping his actors from, well, acting a lot of the time.
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| 40 |
TV Guide
Flashy, "MATRIX"-style action sequences trump ideas; it's hard not to feel you've just watched a feature-length video game with some really heavy back story.
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| 40 |
Chicago Reader
This operates at the intellectual level of the old "Star Trek" in its limp last season, and the professed humanism is belied by the extreme violence and Nazi-chic production design (not to mention a voice-over that traces the outlawing of emotion to "the revolutionary precept of the hate crime").
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| 38 |
Charlotte Observer
It's not only an ultraviolent, ludicrously inconsistent rip-off of Bradbury's idea, but it poisons the well for future efforts.
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| 38 |
Boston Globe
Equilibrium just happens to be a really bad comic book.
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| 30 |
Los Angeles Times
An accidental entertainment, Equilibrium is a science-fiction pastiche so lacking in originality that if you stripped away its inspirations there would be precious little left.
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| 25 |
San Francisco Chronicle
Super- violent, super-serious and super-stupid.
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| 25 |
Baltimore Sun
Equilibrium doesn't tread softly on our dreams; it tramples them.
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| 20 |
Variety
Misses with its blowhard treatment of a silly, obvious script. Results might hazard "Battlefield Earth" comparison if new pic were a tad more fun.
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| 20 |
Film Threat
David Grove
Since Equilibrium shamelessly rips off every Orwellian science fiction thriller in film history, what other reason is there besides sheer desperation for the film to be so stupidly violent?
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| 10 |
Village Voice
As this clueless, bulimic debacle madly regurgitates ideas and iconography from Lang to the brothers Wachowski, Leni Riefenstahl to L. Ron Hubbard, Ray Bradbury to Susan Faludi, it's not just Bale who has a hard time keeping a straight face.
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| 10 |
Washington Post
Equilibrium is like a remake of "1984" by someone who's seen "The Matrix" 25 times while eating Twinkies and doing methamphetamines.
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| 0 |
The New York Times
If someone left "1984," "Fahrenheit 451," "Brave New World," "Gattaca" and the Sylvester Stallone potboilers "Judge Dredd" and "Demolition Man" out in the sun and threw the runny glop onto a movie screen, it would still be a better picture than Equilibrium, a movie that could be stupider only if it were longer.
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