Building a world for puppies

The Third World War has come and gone. In order to prevent the fourth edition, Equilibrium announces at the start, people must stop feeling. So the world goes on a Prozac-type course, modified for the monkish, totalitarian types at the top of the futuristic pile.

"Feel Police" finger anyone with a smile on his face, a tear in her eye; books are verboten; the Mona Lisa is torched; and "sense offenders" are sentenced to "arbitrary combustion".

But touchy-feely rebellion is simmering in the Nether Region, where folk preserve all the tat worthy of a street stall and venerate it like the Antiques Road Show.

Made in Germany - where else? - though computerised by Kurt Wimmer all over the place, Equilibrium suffers from an "own goal" disability: how can actors show emotion when they are supposed to be playing characters who suppress it?

We've seen this Brave New World/1984/ Fahrenheit 451/Metropolis dystopia umpteen times over the aeons. Christian Bale is the post-sensate Ninja-like policeman who saves a collie dog from incineration and is inspired to make the world free for puppy love. Taye Diggs is his treacherous junior partner. Will he spot his boss's defection?

The entire film looks like a derivative of The Matrix, with speeded-up chop-socky fights galore and a gunfight before every potential TV ad-break. Emily Watson plays her third somnambulist role inside a year - after Red Dragon and Minority Report - and poet WB Yeats enjoys a product placement, though not for his more taxing verse. Pretty soon a terrible boredom is born.

Equilibrium
Cert: cert15