Movie Review by Nigel A. Messenger
Starring: Ewan McGregor, Scarlett Johansson, Djimon Hounsou, Sean Bean
Director: Michael Bay
Lincoln Six Echo (Ewan McGregor) and Jordan Two Delta (Scarlett Johansson) live in a sealed underground complex where every moment of their lives is controlled. They live with the knowledge that an environmental disaster has made the Earth’s surface uninhabitable and to venture outside means certain death. They are given simplistic tasks to do without explanation, they are not allowed to touch others of the opposite sex and they live in the hope that they will one day win the chance to be picked by lottery to go to live on “the island”, the last place on the Earth’s surface untouched by disaster – a promise of paradise.
We soon notice however that the people who live in the complex seem very naive, everyone that is, except the doctors, the security guards and the maintenance staff.
Clearly something is not quite right about this sheltered existence and as a curious Lincoln discovers their lives are just a fabrication, he also realises a journey to ‘the island’ is a journey to death. The complex is nothing more than a factory for breeding clones paid for by people in the real world to use as spare parts in case of ill health or damage to their own bodies. These people don’t know however that their clones are intelligent living people – but would they really care?
As Lincoln and Jordan escape into the real world their true adventure begins and pursued by a highly trained security team they must reveal the truth to the world, save their friends in the complex and try to stay alive.
THE ISLAND is an action packed rollercoaster ride of a movie that whilst being a science-fiction set in the near future it plays on many concerns of the present day. What if some cash hungry company used unscrupulous methods in its pursuit of cloning? Even the faked environmental disaster scenario in the movie is another real concern in today’s society. Although the films plot uses these very real concerns it never loses sight of the fact that this is an action/adventure with a goal of creating audience excitement using big-budget special effects and it does this very well indeed! There are some excellent set pieces and the special effects work very well with one possible exception – how do they ever survive the fall on that giant sign? Watch the movie to see what I mean.
All in all THE ISLAND really delivers the goods and director Michael Bay turns out an excellent film. McGregor seems to be on good form as does Scarlett Johansson who looks very hot indeed!
THE ISLAND is a cross between Schwarzenegger’s 6TH DAY and the seventies classic sci-fi LOGAN’S RUN and feels like it has the budget of both these films combined. This is a well made and highly enjoyable sci-fi feature film with it’s ideas only a few steps away from today’s news headlines.
