The Island
DreamWorks Distribution | Release Date: July 22, 2005 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
50
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 38 Critic Reviews
Positive:
13
Mixed:
21
Negative:
4
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
Bay's movie couldn't be more timely; whatever you think about this subject, you might admire his attempt to come to grips with it in a summer blockbuster. Read full review
75
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
It's got a hot premise, some cool sets, attractive stars and action that lets up only when it thinks you're about to surrender. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
The Island runs 136 minutes, but that's not long for a double feature. The first half of Michael Bay's new film is a spare, creepy science fiction parable, and then it shifts into a high-tech action picture. Both halves work. Read full review
75
New York PostKyle Smith
Bay's best film since "The Rock." Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
The movie is more about how many things Michael Bay can smash up -- lots. That might not be a talent most people respect, but it gets through to people anyway, and here Bay does it exceptionally well. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
Starts off an aggressively derivative sci-fi thriller, then morphs into an above-average chase melodrama. Read full review
70
The New York TimesDana Stevens
Glossy, witty eye candy with some moderately chewy stuff in the middle. This lavish, exhaustingly kinetic film is smarter than you might expect, and at the same time dumber than it could be. It's an impressive product: a triumph of cloning that almost convinces you that it possesses a soul. Read full review
67
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
Make no mistake: This not high art. But it does its job without insulting our intelligence or unpleasantly jangling our nerves. Read full review
67
Portland OregonianM. E. Russell
The final third...is so overblown and anticlimactic that it finally gets you thinking about empty profundity and loose ends. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
There's enough fun to be had that it's almost possible to ignore the stupidity of the story and the cavity that replaces character development. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
Bay's strength as a filmmaker, the reason his superficial yet entertaining productions can never be completely ignored, is that he appears to lack shame. He'll blow anything up and run anybody over. The moral complexities don't matter to him. He just wants to stage spectacles, appreciate very good-looking people, and assert his cowboy aesthetic. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
As the careening cars go splat, splat, splat, the director's vision of the future looks like a cheerfully mindless combination of two extremes of carnival entertainment: demolition derby and whack-a-mole. Read full review
63
PremiereGlenn Kenny
Scarlett Johansson looks lovely and hasn't much to do besides that, McGregor only starts having fun when he's playing the "original" of his clone. Read full review
60
VarietyJustin Chang
Frenetic actioner about refugees from a genetic cloning plant starts off intriguingly, burns up its ideas in the first hour and pads out the rest with joltingly repetitive action sequences. Read full review
60
Village VoiceDennis Lim
This is pure essence of Bay--it's big, it's loud, it has no context, and if you show up tanked, I'm sure it's really quite poetic. Read full review
60
SlateDavid Edelstein
There is nothing wrong with the action sequences beyond their sheer length and number. They're in the "Road Warrior" mode: hyper-fast and vicious. Read full review
60
EmpireOlly Richards
Like its slack-jawed clones, The Island is full of energy and incredibly pretty but burdened with only the minimum of smarts. Read full review
50
TimeRichard Schickel
For all the menace of its techno-prattle, its implicit boosts for humanism and its swell production design, the picture is finally a bore. Sci-fi was more powerful when its special effects were cheap and crude, its ideas simple but potently stated. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
The Island begins with a whimper of interest as a cool-hued, cautionary exploration of the ethics of cloning, and ends, in a hail of product placement, with a dumb bang. Read full review
50
Dallas ObserverBill Gallo
As usual, Hollywood hitmeister Bay is more interested in blowing stuff up than in addressing deep questions like the morality of science and the false myths of civilization, and these explosions go on for over two hours. Read full review
50
L.A. WeeklyScott Foundas
Nary an original idea abounds in The Island. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneAllison Benedikt
Classic Bay, except it's missing the crass director's fine-tuned rhythm, his feel for adrenaline, his breakneck edits and sense of humor. Read full review
50
Washington PostDesson Thomson
The best thing about The Island is this: Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson, buffed and dressed in sparkling white, wondering how and when to kiss each other. Read full review
50
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
The first half is high-quality science fiction, the rest is a high-tech chase adventure with a gleeful yen for destructive thrills. Read full review
50
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
The Island could be read as a metaphor for societal ills (commercialization, conformity, pharmaceutical overkill) if it weren't so shamelessly dumb. And dumb it is. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
Chases, crashes and explosions are thick on the land in the second half of this movie, but though they are expertly done, their size, frequency and increasing disconnection from what was once a coherent story leave you feeling pummeled rather than exhilarated. Read full review
50
USA TodayClaudia Puig
This frenzied fiesta of firepower is about cloning people for spare parts, but the movie is a clone itself. Possessing no new ideas, it reworks and borrows from such films as "Blade Runner," "The Matrix" and "Logan's Run." Read full review
50
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
For a slick pop entertainment, more than the usual quotient of timely ideas rattle around between the relentless product placements and futuristic geegaws. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderAndrea Gronvall
Steve Buscemi supplies the only spark of intelligent life in this numbingly flat universe, despite the fancy gadgets, the high-speed chases, and a skyscraper collision reminiscent of the World Trade Center attacks. Read full review
50
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
Like "Mr. and Mrs. Smith," The Island is the kind of suicidal high-concept movie increasingly prevalent these days: a film so thoroughly pre-conceived and pre-sold that most audiences know more about what's going on than the characters do for half the movie. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
Unfortunately, The Island grows dumber as it goes along, gradually disintegrating into a generic good-versus-evil spectacular that not only defies all known laws of gravity and physics, but also suffers from the lack of morality that plagues Bay's films. Read full review
50
SalonStephanie Zacharek
The Island walks a weird, wobbly line between being stupid, falsely fattened-up entertainment and a picture that just might have possibly been made by a person with a brain -- a scrambled one, but a brain nonetheless. Read full review
40
Film ThreatMichael Ferraro
What makes this movie so inadequate is that there are some moments in it that could have been really worth watching. Read full review
40
The A.V. ClubNathan Rabin
An overblown science-fiction epic in which ostensibly unthinking, unfeeling stem-cell-like entities not only think and feel, but look and act like glamorous movie stars. Read full review
38
Rolling StonePeter Travers
A borrowed idea -- hello, "Blade Runner," hi there, "Matrix" -- but an idea nonetheless. Read full review
30
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
Comes on like an overproduced coma, and leaves you comatose by the end. In between are 127 minutes of intermittent chaos that feel like a lifetime.
30
Austin ChronicleMarrit Ingman
If you like "Maxim," you will love The Island. It is glossy. It is expensive. It has lots of slick ads for Aquafina and Cadillac. Read full review
20
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
If you find yourself at "The Island" I have only three words of advice: Vote yourself off. Read full review
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