It should be noted that The Island is blockbuster director Michael Bay’s first bomb. After a string of successful action movies such as Armageddon and The Rock, it was inevitable that something of his bit the dust. What’s sad is that this movie is a hell of a lot better than Pearl Harbor.
The plot of The Island is quite fresh and original. The movie’s trailer, however, didn’t do a good enough job promoting the story. I had already read a plot synopsis from way back when and was eager to see how this movie would look, but I thought the trailers failed to convey the plot well enough. Instead, they focused on the explosions and scenery, which I think is a big reason why people didn’t know enough about this movie to be enticed into seeing it. I mentioned this movie to several friends and they had also seen the trailers, but didn’t really know what it was about, apart from being a sci-fi action movie.
This movie is set ten years into the future where a company has developed an organic shell that they can use to clone adult-sized human beings. The idea is that getting your own clone is the ultimate insurance policy because parts such as a heart, lung, or liver can be harvested when needed. You can even let your clone carry your baby. The clones are all kept in an underground facility and a huge holographic ocean view is painted around them. From birth, or creation, the clones are told that the earth has all but been destroyed and the last place of safe refuge is an island. Occasional lotteries are held to determine which lucky person gets to go to the island. The truth is that a trip to the island is really a trip to a hospital where the clone will be killed in order to get a part for the company’s policy holder.
When one of the clones (Ewan McGregor) begins to question their existence and the fake world run by the insurance company, he explores the restricted areas of the facility and makes a startling discovery – the truth. He then tries to warn a new lottery winner (Scarlett Johansson) and together they make a daring escape out of the compound and into the real world. Once outside, their first goal is to track down the people they were cloned from and let the world know the truth about what is going on. The director of the clone factory (Sean Bean) wants to stop the two escaped clones from blowing the lid off his operation because he had been telling all the customers that the clones would be kept in a vegetative state and never allowed to gain consciousness. To capture the escaped ‘product’, Bean hires a bounty hunter (Djimon Hounsou) to find them and bring them back to the compound, dead or alive.
McGregor and Johansson are great actors, but they weren’t enough to carry this movie. Since the trailers didn’t get the plot across well enough, it dumps the marketability of the film on the actors. McGregor is coming hot off Episode III, but that wasn’t enough to drive people into the movie with all the other competition out there. Johansson is good, but she’s certainly not the big movie star so many people think she is. This actress has had a few minor hits and earned some due recognition, but she needs some more high profile projects to really be bankable. On top of that, she’s too young to be wrinkling sheets with McGregor. An older actor and a younger actress work on some levels, but between them the age difference is too much. Johansson just looks too young.
Another big problem with this movie is that it is too long. It was clear from the trailer that the two clones broke out of the facility and made a run for it in the real world. It takes over half an hour before this happens in the movie. It was interesting to see the inner workings of the compound, but I think way too much time was spent building up the story. Once they got on the outside, it became a lot more fun, but I think the story could have played off the futuristic aspects of it more. Instead, we are treated to a couple of cool car chase scenes where Bay used the same camera technique for car crashes that he did in Bad Boys II. It was cooler the first time. At two hours long, I expected there to be more action in this. I think it showed way too much of people just running around. At first, the running and hiding is quick and intense, but it gets a little old. Even so, the special effects and set designs were very good and the previously mentioned car chases were pretty cool.
To be honest, I think The Island is one of Michael Bay’s better movies, despite its shortcomings. If the trailers had done it more justice, it might have been a bigger hit. This has a solid story, a good cast, and enough originality to keep you interested all the way to the end. A lot of mindless junk makes it to the screen during the summer months, but this movie was much better than I expected.
Lincoln Six-Echo is a resident of a seemingly utopian but contained facility in the mid-21st century. Like all of the inhabitants of this carefully co...More at HotMovieSale.com
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