Sunday, July 24, 2005

The Island (2005)

The Island marks Michael Bay's sixth foray into studio cinema, and in my humble opinion, his most successful yet. Let's take a look into the Bay catalog, his name is synonomous with big budget eye candy, fast cuts, and sugar candy stories. Bad Boys, all right, nothing spectacular, The Rock, a great action flick, Armageddon blah (a guilty pleasure I admit), Pearl Harbor I didn't hate as much as the rest of the world but again it was lacking heart.

Now, to The Island. Imagine if you've got a lot of money, and would like to live forever. The solution is as simple as a few million dollars. A clone of yourself at your age is created, and installed into a controlled facility. It is in this facility that they are educated to the age of about a fifteen year old. The clones are told that there was a contamination on the earth, and that the island is the only pure, uncontaminated spot on the Earth. So they wait in this special facility till they win the "lottery," and are transported to the island. Back in the real world, your liver starts to kick the bed? Your clone then wins the lottery, where in reality, your organ is harvested, the clone killed.

Lincoln Six-Echo (Ewan McGregor) stumbles upon the truth, and along with Jordan Two-Delta, are on the run, pursued by a freelance bounty-hunter of sorts Laurent (Djimon Hounsou). Bay has the right ingredients here, great actors, a great premise, all mixed in with his flashy eye candy. Hounsou is one of my favorite up and coming actors, having had great scenes in Gladiator and In America (totally underrated).

The only cons? Wall to wall product placement, but once your past that, it's a great ride.

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