There really is an awful lot of money spent keeping us diverted for a couple of hours.

You won't remember much about this silly film the day after but you might enjoy the gun-fight carnage at the time. And before you start...that's harsh but fair, I'd say.

So, this nonsense is set in a 1984, Big Brother-style post-World War III society, where it's illegal to be individual.

Everyone's required to take a daily dose of mind-numbing drug Prozium, to eradicate war and hate and maintain the equilibrium of the title.

Art, books and music are strictly forbidden, and feeling is a crime punishable by death.

Christian Bale is a cleric, a sort of top-draw SAS law enforcer, who is instructed to find offenders and shoot to kill using an impressive armoury, hidden up his Tardis-like sleeves.

He even bumps off his own partner (Sean Bean), when he stops taking the medicine and starts reading Yeats and fraternising with The Resistance. A suave Taye Diggs is drafted in as a more loyal replacement.

The motley crew of hippies who make up this counter-culture store ban memorabilia and flout the rules of Identical Unit Construction, whereby all living spaces must be the same.

Emily Watson plays one such activist, who is hiding a granny's chintzy front room behind a plasterboard wall, complete with plenty of frilly contraband cushions, books, records and photos. All good stuff to stir up those outlawed emotions.

The Father, the head of this Librian society, is a despotic psycho who orders all transgressors to be found and bumped off, usually in spectacular style by Bale, doing Matrix knock-off back flips with 12 guns in each hand.

But when Bale's wife is carted off for 'feeling', his mood changes and he skips his dose. Suddenly music found in raids is reducing him to tears and he's rescuing illegal puppies the authorities want slaughtered.

Will he uphold the law or will he help the Resistance overcome the fascist ruling elite?

The action can be fun at times, but it's pretty ludicrous when 50 storm-troopers get gunned down by one bloke. Half of them just stand about waiting to be shot.

Christian Bale scowls a little too much - but he just about pulls the bigger scenes off.

Director Kurt Wimmer loses his way on the tender, emotional stuff. He's clearly much more at home when all guns are blazing.

Aidan Conway