The Always-Late Review - The Island

As per usual, I'm late... Now, when this movie first came out in theaters, the critics trashed it, so I didn't bother (the prospect of seeing Ewan McGregor on screen tempted me, but not even someone as sexy as him onscreen could convince me). But a week back, my biology teacher decided to show us this film (probably to resuscitate some sort of interest from those who were lagging behind). I have to admit, I thought that, during the first 40 minutes of the film, it was a kind of thoughtful and philosophical film. However, this is a film by Michael Bay (how also did Pearl Harbour), and films by Michael Bay are usually centered around explosions and mass destruction. I've tried to watch Pearl Harbour once, and I nearly fainted of boredom. Needless to say, his thinky would-have-been-a-classic sci-fi flick turned into a needless documentary on how to destroy buildings and cars. The main characters even manage a stunt where they fall off a huge skyscraper and somehow manage to survive the whole incident with nary a scratch (or almost, anyways).

Synoposis
The story is about a man named Lincoln-Six-Echo (Ewan McGregor), who lives in an utopian society world where his every movement is watched, his diet strictly regulated, his clothing extremely drab, and a too close proximity with members of the opposite sex are strictly forbidden. It seems that sometime ago, the world was almost destroyed after a biolchemical accident, and the only place left uncontaminated on the planet was a place called "The Island". The survivors all live indoors, in fear of being contaminated, and hope for a chance to go to the said island, and do something with their lives. Except, everything's a lie: there was no incident; the "survivors" are actually clones financed by their real and rich conterparts as an insurance policy, and those who are chosen to go to the Island are really going to be cut up into little pieces and have their organs "donated" to their sponsor. Lincoln, being the only clone with curiosity, happens upon this sad secret one day and decides to escape with Jordan, who was also convieniently going to the Island that day.

The Good
Believe it or not, the first half or so of the plot is terrific, and it really reminds you of the kind of thing Spielberg might think up.

The photography is amazing, the colours are extremely vivid, and the white background and pallette of the facility only makes the colours stand out even more.

The computer-generated technology is excellent; it really seems like the kind of technology we would have in about ten years of so.

Future L.A is amazing, too. It looks like a modern city of our age, but yet, it's not.

Ewan McGregor is hot, and Scarlett Johansson is also very sexy in her first(?) adult role.

The reaction of the real Tom Lincoln towards the appearance of the clones at his house is also very realistic. It would have been truly cheesy if he decided to be the selfless hero, and die a hero's death in his clone's arms. In fact, there is an entire moral ambiguity thing going on: it sort of becomes a real race for survival, and it's all about ourselves and not really what's truly right. For one thing, when the clone Jordan escaped the facility, she had doomed the real Sarah Jordan. And Lincoln's little chat with Albert Laurent after the latter had just killed his real counterpart brought chills up my spine.

Sean Bean, who seems to really like playing the bad/semi-bad guy, is great in his role as the local shrink who is also the head of the cloning program. His performance sort of makes him a kind of grayish character, but he later becomes just a plain and rather cruel baddie at the end.

Michael Clarke Duncan gave a heart-wrenching performance as Starkweather, one of the clones who wakes up during an operation and tries to escape. There was betrayal and innocence in his every movement and expression.

Another interesting scene is where they had to kill all the developping clones. Some of them were still only a system of blood vessels, so it does kind of have a heart-wrenching parallel to abortion.

The Bad

Oh, my... An X-Box in a facility meant for survivors of a biochemical disaster? And Puma shoes? First of all, in a facility like this, I would have expected them to create their own products (à la Dharma Institute on Lost) so that the clones wouldn't question their origins. Second of all, When Ewan talked for amybe a minute about how he was missing a pair of shoes, I had thought that perhaps he was agitated because his orderly life was suddenly brought upside-down (gasp! a missing pair of shoes!), but I later realized that it was because the Puma mark on them, and that it was a great example of shameless and obvious product placement. Secondly, the X-Box logo is the old one, as the new X-Box 360 now uses a different logo. I suppose the X-Box people simply didn't want to reveal anything. But when they managed to escape to LA, though, it came off much easier, and even made everything more realistic. And I don't suppose Mike had a choice. With all those special effets, you had to get the dough from somewhere.

The chase scenes were almost completely useless, unless you counted showing the fact that, without any training of any kind, Lincoln managed to pilot (or drive) his speeder thingy without crashing straight into a wall. If that counted, it still took too long. And the falling-off-the-building thing: that was way too much and completely unnecessary. I suppose that when he was younger, Mike liked to watch things blow up just for the fun of it. Perhaps not in the psychopathical way, but definately in the obsessive way.

And another problem I have with the plot is in the scene where they were about to gas-chamber (or fry) the Echo-generation clones. I'm sure that it was only way that they would generate suspence and then have Scarlett Johansson rescue them. But despite that, it was too unnecessary. They could have just given them a shot or something, and told them that it was a temporary immunizer for when they would have to go outside to get to the Island or something like that.

And another thing I had wondered about. What happened to the clones when they got freed? It's kinda hard, I'm sure to try and introduce those poor clones into society.

Conclusion
A great movie to show to teenagers, especially because of its slightly preachy nature. At least they learn something. But just rent it... I think I read somewhere that Steven Spielburg was first given the script, but he turned it down for financial reasons, so we would often wonder, what would the movie have been like had it been a Spielburg production?