The Island
As it turns out, The Island is a remake of a movie that once appeared on Mystery Science Theater 3000, The Clonus Horror. A lot of people thought that boded poorly for the quality of this movie. Well, they had a point, but that's getting ahead of myself. In The Island, humanity is limited to a tightly controlled environment due to some form of environmental contamination on the surface. Survivors are occasionally still found but most people go about their daily lives with their caloric intake and health tightly monitored. Everyone also participates in a lottery to go to the Island, the last uncontaminated place on earth, for the rest of their days. But for the most part, life is reasonably OK if somewhat dreary.
Enter our protagonist, Lincoln Six Echo (Ewan McGregor). He's vaguely dissatisfied, has dreams of an outside world, and is a bit of a maverick. He manages to actually get out of the environment to learn that the surface isn't contaminated at all and that people who go to the Island are actually harvested for body parts. The whole complex and everyone in it are part of an insurance-type firm that grows replacement body parts for the rich and powerful people who can afford them.
Lincoln Six Echo grabs a friend, Jordan Two Delta (Scarlett Johansson) and makes a break for it shortly before she too is hauled off to the Island. With the help of a friend of Lincoln Six Echo's, one of the technicians from the outside, they learn exactly who and what they are. And they end up on the run to avoid the company's hired goons and recruit the help of their "owners" who were fed a line that their replacement parts were grown humanely (and mindlessly).
The acting by McGregor and Johansson, and by other cast members, is quite decent and the story isn't a bad one. Where this movie starts to break down is in the action sequences. They become kind of repetitive and silly and, ultimately, dispensible.
Overall, I give the movie a C. Good actors doing a good job with a decent story idea, but with supporting action that just doesn't cut it.
posted by Bill D91 @ 3:29 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
I'm offended that you would give any movie that Michael Bay directs a grade of C. While I haven't seen the movie as I've vowed never to sit through another Michael Bay film, I find it hard to believe he could direct something that would receive a passing grade. He is the worst director in Hollywood(make that one of the worst, no offence to Uwe Boll), yet studios keep letting him direct big budget movies. My only hope is that Transformers flops as hard as The Island did. That way maybe studios will stop giving him these big budget projects.
Mr. Bay, if you read this, please take heed of the numerous letters I've written you and stop directing movies. Go back to directing commercials and music videos where putting in a cut every second is considered acceptable and not merely nauseating. Maybe try television. People already expect mediocrity in TV; I'm sure you'll fit right in.
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