Michael Bay’s love affair with excessive noise and rapid-fire visuals continues in his latest summer blowout, “The Island,” a loud, standard-issue action flick cloaked in the body of a sci-fi subject: cloning. This film is a Michael Bay vehicle—it was no accident that Steven Spielberg and the Dreamworks hierarchy thought of him for this picture. Sure, it’s got a brainy, sci-fi thread, but at its core, it’s a lightning-paced action/chase film with the plethora of explosions and fight scenes that are the director’s trademark. The guy should be commended for going with his strengths here instead of making another miserable effort at telling a story (i.e. “Pearl Harbor,” “Armageddon”).
The setting is an underground bunker in 2019 filled whose inhabitants all walk around in white tracksuits that scream, “THIS IS THE FUTURE!” According to those in charge, an ecological disaster has killed everyone on the outside save for rescued survivors who arrive regularly. The residents work, exercise and play, but their common dream is to win the lottery in which a randomly selected person wins a trip to “the island”—the last uncontaminated place in the world. Otherwise, everyone is watched, probed and monitored almost constantly, but no one asks any questions…until now.
Ewan McGregor stars as Lincoln Six-Echo, a 3-year resident who has nightmares and begins to question the world he lives in. When his best friend Jordan Two-Delta (Scarlett Johansson) wins the lottery, he fears for her safety though he isn’t sure why. His worst fears come true when he witnesses previous lottery winners being executed. Desperate to save Jordan and get to the bottom of the mystery, Lincoln grabs her and they escape on foot in a hail of gunfire. Outside, they are aided by McCord (Steve Buscemi), an employee at the institute who reveals the truth: they are cloned human beings who exist as “insurance policies” for affluent Americans. If a client needs a new liver, they can simply harvest it from their clone. Lincoln and Jordan devise a plan to expose the twisted—and illegal—truth, but the institute’s chief doctor Merrick (Sean Bean) and his hired mercenaries (led by Djimon Hounsou) will stop at nothing to make the pair disappear.
This is Bay’s best film since “The Rock” although that isn’t saying much. However, it plays to Bay’s strengths: after a solid and interesting opening act, it is a rapid-fire thrill-ride that kept reminding me of “Run Lola Run!” only with a big explosions and no red hair. Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson provide a big boost with well-played portrayals of innocents who are experiencing the world for the first time. This interesting development gives you an idea that Bay was working with better material than usual—not to mention this script avoids any of the romance and awful dialogue that made his earlier films laughable. Technically, “The Island” meets the standards for this kind of film. It is supposed to be only 15 years into the future, but it still has many of the requisite “futuristic” sights such as flying trains and jet-powered motorcycles. None of it is edgy or groundbreaking in any way. Set and costume designs for the underground bunker are ok, but have the same lack of newness and energy—we’ve been seeing the same stuff since “Logan’s Run” (and probably earlier). Special effects and stunt sequences are solid—it’s basically one long chase scene after another using different settings and different modes of travel. Some are on foot with guns blazing, others are in cars and trucks with huge crashes and explosions that pale after you’ve seen the highway sequence in “The Matrix Reloaded.” There’s even a chase on jet-propelled motorcycles that recalls the pod races in “Star Wars: Episode I—The Phantom Menace.”
Those flaws could be overlooked, but where Bay goes wrong is in releasing this beast at nearly two-and-a-half hours in length (136 minutes to be exact). With all the running, racing, shooting and exploding going on, it just becomes sensory overload after a while. We all know things are going to end happily for our heroic clones once they escape—let’s get them there in a timely manner with a handful of creative sequences rather than two hours of aural and visual bombardment.
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AmberNov 9th, 2006 - 09:33:29
Actually, the movie is set 50 years into the future. If you're going to write a review, then you should probably pay more attention to the film.
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