The Island Takes Us Only Half Way to Paradise
However, without Jerry Bruckheimer as one of those producers, it seems The Island would stand a chance at some decent character development and possibly make for an interesting film. Screenwriter Caspian Tredwell-Owen provides the foundation of the timely, and not too futuristic, story surrounding the questionable ethics of cloning. Bay directs this idea sharply and with mystery for the first 45 minutes before resorting to his old bag of quickly depleting tricks and blows stuff up.
Ewan McGregor plays Lincoln Six Echo, a clone (or agnate as the film refers to them) who leads a monotonous existence in a sterile environment as a survivor of what’s known as “The Contamination”. This apocalyptic event wiped out most of the world except for The Island – the only pristine land on earth. Periodically, a lottery is held to send some lucky agnates to The Island and what they assume will be a lifelong blissful existence.
What these agnates don’t know is that they are actually clones of other humans (sponsors) who have paid handsomely to have their “other selves” raised in a perfectly controlled atmosphere. So when the sponsor’s body breaks down, they will harvest the healthy organs from the agnate, thus ensuring a longer life as the original human.
How far can human cloning go? What would happen if this scientific technology gets into the wrong hands of people who exploit it and sell to the highest bidders? Wonderfully relevant questions for sure, and the first half of the film builds up to the answers in a cold and calm manner, without so much as a cork-popping of violence.
With stark white athletic jumpsuits and meals monitored specifically for maximum health, the agnates move mindlesslly through time and a space that resembles a mid-21st Century Nike Athletic training facility. As soon as inquisitive Six Echo begins snooping around and witnessing things he shouldn’t, the story heads down the familiar track of running, gunning, and, you guessed it, high-powered explosions.
The chilling truth to his existence forces Lincoln Six Echo to bust his way out into the real world, and he takes Jordan Two Delta (Scarlett Johansson) with him, saving her from a one-way ticket to The Island. With the aid of McCord (Steve Buscemi), a worker at the facility, Lincoln and Jordan find out what it means to be human. With valuable products on the loose, facility operator Merrick (Sean Bean) will stop at nothing to get his biggest secrets back at base.
Cue gunfire. Check. Cue explosions. Check. Cue high-speed car chase. Check. Cue naieve protagonists surviving onslaught of advanced weaponry, vehicles, and man-power with enough time to develop a romance in the face of death. Che……..
Now wait a minute. What happened to the good things we had going? Suspense, creepy clean living quarters, discovery of evil, and Scottish lad Ewan McGregor speaking in the accent of a 15 year old American “dude”. Oh, right. This is where the ghost of the Bay/Bruckheimer collaborations from the past rears its ugly head. The action is non-stop, dialogue is reduced to monosyllabic directives, and gunfire dominates what is left of a narrative that fades as quickly as our “fond” memories of Con Air.
Even when he had a chance to create cinematic visions that are reminiscent of Minority Report, Bladerunner, and Return of the Jedi, Michael Bay fell back into his familiar routine, which is the misfortune of the whole ordeal. The pyschological tensions of inquisitiveness, confusion, discovery, action, and revelation are overwhelmed in the final act by Bay’s explosive proclivities.
Given the film’s provocative premise, combined with the increasingly versatile skills of Ewan McGregor in the lead, The Island refuses to live up to its potential. Where is the future of cloning and human responsibility headed? Impossible to tell. But such a revolutionary and Frankensteinian concept deserves more intelligent treatment.
Grade: C+
