I just cruised past Rottentomatoes.com, (at entropy's tacit suggestion) something I didn't do before I wrote the review. From reading the blurbs it's pretty obvious that most of the reviewers, if not all, just didn't get the movie.
Reason must triumph over emotion. How often must we, as a society, be reminded of this?
Equilibrium graphically presents the case for both sides of the question: Which should rule, heart or mind? The answer, of course, is a balance of both. In today's press and in most of my discussions with people over events in the world, emotion rules supreme. Arguments that produce a warm fuzzy get dressed up in pseudo-intellectual nonsense that sounds reasonable but when carried to a logical conclusion is revealed as silly. Equilibrium shows the system out of whack in the other direction but does not present our extreme as the answer either. It draws a solid conclusion right smack in the middle of the road where it belongs, emotion informing but ruled by reason.
My favorite moment from this movie is when Preston is taking the polygraph and has been revealed as a wildly frightened sense offender. When he reaches the conclusion that he really is going to have to fight his way in and kill "Father" the polygraph demonstrates his decision and the polygraph-reader understands. Mayhem follows. Choice!
The reviewers on Rottentomatoes are all pig ignorant philistines.
