The Island

DreamWorks Distribution | Release Date: July 22, 2005

8.6	USER SCORE Universal acclaim based on 846 Ratings

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MarkB.Jan 21, 2006

America's Most Obnoxious Director tries something different with this trite, contrived and unconvincing sci-fi film, and as a result gives us two bad movies for the price of one. The first hour is a futuristic fantasy about a highly America's Most Obnoxious Director tries something different with this trite, contrived and unconvincing sci-fi film, and as a result gives us two bad movies for the price of one. The first hour is a futuristic fantasy about a highly structured, repressed society of slaves, drones and worker bees held in check not only because the system they work under is all they've known, but also by the promise of winning a daily lottery whose prize is supposedly a permanent retirement on an idyllic island but is in reality...well, a permanent retirement, anyway. This will prove shocking and illuminating only to those who have never seen Beneath the Planet of the Apes, Logan's Run or any of hundreds of other bad-new-world films; forget that some of the people involved with the obscure B-movie Parts: The Clonus Horror took the moviemakers to court, I saw the whole lottery premise played out on a decade-plus-old rerun of Sliders on DVD not long ago! Lack of originality is, of course, not a mortal sin, but mind-numbing idiocy is: this is the kind of movie that in order to work requires that not one but two major characters stumble across a highly elaborate, sophisticated security system in order to see Things They're Not Supposed To See, else you don't have a movie; the most effective and powerful lesson the film teaches is one that all non-homeschooled sixth graders already know, namely, if you're really nice to the cafeteria lady you get extra treats. Once our heroes (Evan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson) discover the big secret and the chase is underway, director Michael Bay (The Rock, Bad Boys, Bad Boys 2) stops sucking in his gut and reverts to just plain sucking as usual, giving us plenty of everything we love to hate him for once again: loud, irritating noise, an almost gleeful heartlessness toward innocents caught in the crossfire and their property, self-referential humor that isn't funny, promiscuous use of product placement that's truly corrupt both in number and inappropriateness, criminal misuse of Steve Buscemi, and the editorial philosophy of why settle for one shot when 32 will do even better? (As always, Bay cuts his own throat with the latter; a potentially spectacular stunt involving an armored truck doing a 360-degree flip is robbed of all effectiveness because Bay shoots it from several different angles and insists on showing them all to us.) Some people have praised Bay for having te self-discipline to not revert to his most irritating trademark techniques until almost halfway through the movie; to me, this is like praising an infant because he went for an hour WITHOUT soiling his diaper before finally doing so. Acting is mediocre or nonexistent with one exception: Ethan Phillips is actually quite touching as a drone who never wins the lottery and doesn't realize how lucky he is; McGregor gives a performance as dull as his vocal turns in Robots and Valiant while the sublime Johansson (Lost in Translation, Match Point) not only does her first very bad work but is photographed and costumed to look like Tara Reid. That's unforgivable...even by Michael Bay standards!… Expand

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ryancarroll88Aug 27, 2010

The movie takes a controversial biological/ethical issue and handles it with all the tact and seriousness of a Goosebumps serial. In the end its nothing more than a prolonged futuristic chase scenario with lots of color filtering (did theyThe movie takes a controversial biological/ethical issue and handles it with all the tact and seriousness of a Goosebumps serial. In the end its nothing more than a prolonged futuristic chase scenario with lots of color filtering (did they really have to make the ENTIRE movie look orange and blue?) It's a shame, because there were a lot of talented actors at work here...… Expand

0 of 14 users found this helpful014

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CassicoutureSep 15, 2013

Great movie! Ewan Mcgregor amazing as always! The movie is an amazing aspect on a conflicting issue the world has been debating. All the bad reviews don't get it and think its only a movie about running, when truly it is more than that. It'sGreat movie! Ewan Mcgregor amazing as always! The movie is an amazing aspect on a conflicting issue the world has been debating. All the bad reviews don't get it and think its only a movie about running, when truly it is more than that. It's funny, curious, and entertaining!!… Expand

0 of 14 users found this helpful014

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TonyB.Jan 10, 2006

One of the more provocative scientific-ethical issues of our time, cloning deserves to be the subject of a good film. "The Island" is not that film. What it is is a loud, clumsy and overly-plotted bore.