The setting it reminded me of most was We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, which I assume you have read.

It is the most notable example of a pristinely clean dystopia that I can think of. The same rejection of everything natural which even Brave New World didn’t have.

Reconsidering the two (or three) times I saw Equilibrium I think that in a world (it’s more “just one megacity” we see, no?) that’s organized like that you can have two types of rebels:
The ones that go out in the street and give free hugs. Or…
The ones that hide undercover and are VERY careful in accepting new people.

Seeing the way the Clerics work it’s quite clear which ones have a life expectancy of more than 20min…
Given that gun kata really works the way it’s shown to you can’t even rely on a group of rebels with automatic weapons guarding your entrance and relying on spray and pray… The Clerics just won’t be where the bullets go and another rebel cell is going down.

Overall the society depicted in Equilibrium is in my eyes a dying one. You can’t just eliminate emotions and hope that your population numbers remain stationary lest even think about the population growing.
I don’t think that people will “create” new members for the populace if there’s no way to being attached to them. Where’s the sense in having kids when you just “do it on orders ” and not because you can smile over all the little victories your offspring conquers the world with he’s growing into?

Dang, I just smiled, I think I hear the Clerics knocking on my door…

As for UltraViolet: The only cool thing on that movie -in my eyes- is the storage bracelets that are somehow able to deconstruct whatever you fill them with and reassemble it the second you need it. The rest is pretty much rubbish… Colorful but rubbish.

If you want to see more gun kate, there is another movie which features it named “Ultraviolet”. However, I remember it to be less than good and not that interesting. It is from the same director as Equilibrium, so make of that what you will.

@ jambarama:

Thank you for the stealth-spelling-correction. :)

And yes, I think you have got it. The setting was just bland and unoriginal. Which, I guess might have been the whole point, but in that case they just overdid it.

I guess it’s har[d] to put a finger on what exactly was wrong with the setting, but I just felt it was a bit contrived

I’ll tell you what it was for me. For me, the visuals & plot of the movie were so derivative and so much was outright ripped off other dystopian stories and movies, there was nothing visually novel and I was never surprised and never forced to think. Gun martial arts being the exception.