Attack of the clones

Review by Vives Anunciacion

The Island
Directed by Michael Bay
Written by Caspian Tredwell-Owen
Starring Ewan McGregor, Scarlett Johansson
PG 13/ 127 minutes
Warner Brothers/ Dreamworks Pictures

In this futuristic action-thriller, director Michael Bay fires his usual arsenal of spectacular stunts and flamboyant camerawork to tell a surprisingly engaging story about human survival. It seems that for the first time, Mr. Bay understands the word Emotion.

In the mid-21st century, humans live in a controlled-environment facility that protects them from a polluted world. The high-tech antiseptic facility supervises each person’s daily living on a 24-hour basis. Every person wears the same uniform every day, distinguishing the inhabitants from the personnel. Everything is controlled, resources are shared, all is healthy.

Large video screens scattered around the walls of the facility display community bulletins and programs. A community bulletin announces the winner of the day’s Lottery, which gives one or two inhabitants the rare chance to relocate to and repopulate the last uncontaminated natural environment in the planet, modestly called The Island.

One of the inhabitants, an individualist by the name of Lincoln Six Echo (Ewan McGregor), discovers the true nature of the facility’s operations. He takes his close friend and most recent lottery winner Jordan Two Delta (Scarlett Johansson) and escapes from the facility. The two are relentlessly pursued and hunted – but for a more sinister reason: the inhabitants of the underground facility are biological clones, “products” serving as medical spare parts and “insurance policies” of earth’s rich and famous.

Director Michael Bay attempts to take himself seriously, reducing the amount of signature Bay action for more plot points and narrative screen time in The Island. About a full hour is fleshed out to explain the workings of the containment facility, unconventional in Bay terms and boring for Hollywood’s blockbuster attention span.

But it seems Bay was making his own sci-fi masterpiece, mixing elements of Michael Anderson’s Logan’s Run and George Lucas’ THX 1138 about humans (not necessarily clones) on the run from a crazed utopian society. One scene involving “spiders” is reminiscent of Minority Report, while a few CGI scenes are remarkably stunning. McGregor is interesting as a confused being deprived of soul and humanity. Johansson looks stunning yet gives a perfunctory performance to a narrowly written character.

Bay reinforces the notion that he is one of America’s best action directors especially with the spectacular action sequence involving large metal dumbbells rolling off the freeway during a high-speed chase. But as I have said, Bay attempts to put more than just action to this two-hour plus movie.

There’s the age-old rumination about the morality of cloning humans, especially now that it is seen as technologically possible. The Island may not be the most original concept on the subject of cloning, but it does present a humanizing aspect to the debate. The time will come when clones will exist with other humans, but by then none of the ills the present society (like poverty and racial slur) should be alive.