Read Mixed User Reviews for The Island (2005)

5

grandpajoe6191Sep 24, 2011

Its always the same thing for Michael Bay; the picture's big, but the result is small. "The Island" is no better.

6 of 32 users found this helpful626

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5

ReviewCriticJan 27, 2012

The Island is a well acted but plain action picture, that never seems to get anywhere. Once again, Michael Bay has failed to impress me, although it is good compared to his other films.

3 of 21 users found this helpful318

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5

gm101Aug 8, 2011

Before I start the review, let me just say that I'm not a Michael Bay hater (I absolutely love his Transformers movies). However, this movie has to be one of Bay's weakest films. Product placement didn't fit well in the future setting, EwanBefore I start the review, let me just say that I'm not a Michael Bay hater (I absolutely love his Transformers movies). However, this movie has to be one of Bay's weakest films. Product placement didn't fit well in the future setting, Ewan McGregor freaks me out when speaking with an American accent, and the ending was kinda weak. Which is unfortunate since the plot did have interesting concepts.… Expand

0 of 9 users found this helpful09

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6

moviegrabbagJun 12, 2011

I hate to admit that I actually have a Michael Bay guilty pleasure but I do. This movies running time is a little long but this is only because the movie actually takes the time to develop the story and characters. Wait what! characterI hate to admit that I actually have a Michael Bay guilty pleasure but I do. This movies running time is a little long but this is only because the movie actually takes the time to develop the story and characters. Wait what! character development what's that? It's actually refreshing to see a movie that took the time to make you care about the characters. The acting was also very strong. You do have to love Scarlett Johansson and Ewan McGregor was incredible and you never go wrong with Steve Buscemi in anything. The only complaint was that during the action scenes the camera work was kinda crazy. Over all a great flick and well worth the watch.… Expand

0 of 13 users found this helpful013

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6

TyranianApr 10, 2019

Has phenomenally good music and good acting, unfortunately the story goes from smart to dumb, to dumber.

0 of 12 users found this helpful012

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5

SpangleAug 13, 2016

The first half is terrific and incredibly smart, but the second half devolves into a series of explosions and action movie cliches and is more along the lines of what one would expect from Michael Bay. It is tragic because you can see theThe first half is terrific and incredibly smart, but the second half devolves into a series of explosions and action movie cliches and is more along the lines of what one would expect from Michael Bay. It is tragic because you can see the good movie get blown up in one of the many explosions and if anything is heartwrenching here, it is the loss of the dearly departed quality film. Instead, the film's second half kills the first half by being poorly written and incredibly formulaic. The first half, on the other hand, introduces a very interesting world with a compelling premise. Here, the acting is very good and mystery abounds as you try to figure out the secrets behind the world. As the film progresses, however, it turns out this one is just a redo on previous science fiction films and it has nothing up its sleeves but fool's gold. Plus, Michael Bay's hard on for explosions is overwhelming in the second half, which is really too bad because I could have still enjoyed a wholly derivative science fiction film with such good acting, production design, and special effects. Sadly, I did not get this and instead got a loud, bombastic action film that only Michael Bay can make. For action junkies, The Island should deliver the requisite explosions. For others, shut it off after an hour.… Expand

0 of 5 users found this helpful05

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6

Rox22Jan 4, 2013

I would say that the first half of the movie is extremely good and well thought out, adding a really nice sci-fi'esque atmosphere. But, then the big plot twist happedns halfway through and it becaomes yet another generic Michael Bay actionI would say that the first half of the movie is extremely good and well thought out, adding a really nice sci-fi'esque atmosphere. But, then the big plot twist happedns halfway through and it becaomes yet another generic Michael Bay action flick. A real shame. Overall: Had the potential to something unique and great, until it decided to sell out for cheap thrills. The movie is still good and enjoyable, but a disappointment in the end.… Expand

0 of 13 users found this helpful013

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4

diogomendesSep 14, 2015

Probably one of the most entertaining Michael Bay movies, but it's still a lackluster effort, with dumb dialogue, convoluted plotting and bland characters. A lot of things are dumb in this movie, like the whole concept of stranding people onProbably one of the most entertaining Michael Bay movies, but it's still a lackluster effort, with dumb dialogue, convoluted plotting and bland characters. A lot of things are dumb in this movie, like the whole concept of stranding people on a large facility and killing them for... what again? Surreal chase scenes overshadow fine performances from Scarlett Johansson and Ewan McGregor, and bloated cinematography make it another bombastic, derivative sci-fiction thriller, that's not short of mediocre.

Final Score: 4.5/10… Expand

0 of 5 users found this helpful05

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6

HotelCentralFeb 8, 2018

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. This is a fairly conventional action flick which relies on a flimsy rationale to explain why a bunch of clones, created to provide spare parts, have to be allowed to achieve consciousness (and be kept in a scifi enclosure where their behavior is monitored and manipulated): if the clones aren't allowed to live and breath like ordinary people the organs harvested from the clones fail after being transplanted into the people paying for new organs.

It's obvious baloney. And there's a lot more baloney in the film. But if you're able to switch off your brain and go along for the ride then by all means have a nice time. I personally couldn't wait for it to be over.… Expand

0 of 21 users found this helpful021

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4

MovieManiac83Apr 22, 2015

This summer, a surprising preponderance of popcorn fare has resonated with ham-fisted political overtones, from blockbusters that put George W. Bush's words into the sneering mouths of villains to The Island, an overblown science-fiction epicThis summer, a surprising preponderance of popcorn fare has resonated with ham-fisted political overtones, from blockbusters that put George W. Bush's words into the sneering mouths of villains to The Island, 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.

An overblown update of the 1979 cheapie Parts: The Clonus Horror, Michael Bay's first film without partner-in-crap Jerry Bruckheimer casts a slumming Ewan McGregor as a suspiciously spunky clone bred and engineered to be docile and unquestioning, so that he may one day achieve his life's goal of being picked to live in a blissful utopia called "The Island." McGregor and his peers occupy a Brave New World complete with requisite funky-ass tracksuits and fresh new sneakers, but what good are phat new kicks if they only come in one color? Such is the nature of McGregor's particular hell, whose antiseptic white interiors and orgy of shameless product placement suggests the bastard progeny of Stanley Kubrick and a high-powered team of viral marketers. Clearly a world in which a dude cannot kick back with a sixer of Budweiser, a porterhouse steak, and a Maxim is no kind of world at all. Like any red-blooded American clone, McGregor longs for more and better consumer choices, so he and his dim-witted platonic friend Scarlett Johansson bust out of the cloning facility and head to Los Angeles to find his human doppelgänger.

As usual, Bay stages the action at a breakneck pace that's never frenetic enough to obscure his film's plot holes and logical lapses. For instance, the cloning facility's evil overlords have created an elaborate cover story to keep the clones from knowing that they're being harvested for parts, but not one sophisticated enough to keep the naïve McGregor from easily uncovering its sinister secrets. McGregor similarly makes the leap from oblivious man-child to James Bond-like man of action within days, a development for which The Island can only find a half-assed rationale. McGregor at least fares better than Johansson, who, in her thankless role as the vapid clone of a supermodel, trades in her usual prickliness and fierce intelligence for a doe-eyed look of perpetual confusion. Johansson's dumb-blonde turn can perhaps most charitably be described as a feature-length homage to Suzanne Somers, though Johansson scores only marginally more screen time than her overworked stunt doubles. Clonus was forgotten by seemingly everyone other than MST3K—and, apparently, The Island's screenwriters. For all its sound and fury, The Island deserves the same reception.… Expand

0 of 5 users found this helpful05

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5

CineAutoctonoDec 21, 2015

The Island was a bubbling action film , excellent photography, interesting plot , but it was a bit boring insurance screenplay Michael Bay still not replenished until after the Transformers sequel but fell again.

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6

MovieManiac1994Jan 4, 2016

18, 25, 36, 59, 46, 12. No, not lottery numbers. Opening weekend figures (in millions, naturally) for Michael Bay's six movies to date. And yes, they're in order. That slightly stinky 12 is for The Island, Bay's first film away from18, 25, 36, 59, 46, 12. No, not lottery numbers. Opening weekend figures (in millions, naturally) for Michael Bay's six movies to date. And yes, they're in order. That slightly stinky 12 is for The Island, Bay's first film away from super-producer Jerry Bruckheimer and under Spielberg's DreamWorks umbrella instead. So much for Bay's `Trust the box-office' philosophy. It seems US audiences were somewhat underwhelmed by the wham-bam auteur's latest offering. Or maybe they were just confused by the trailer (The Island! There is no island! Oh, okay then).

Which is a shame because this isn't bad at all. It may not live up to its Bay with brains pre-release hype (who said that?) but there's much fun to be had from Logan 5's - apologies, Lincoln Six-Echo's - misadventures. Sure, there is a sense of déjà vu to nearly every scene (It's Logan's Run, it's THX 1138, it's... Minority Report!) but the whole thing's slick and enthusiastic enough for that not to matter too much.

The first 40 minutes, in fact, are distinctly un-Bay - calm, almost foreboding, as Lincoln, courtesy of a small moth, a large dose of curiosity and some sage advice from booze and porn fan McCord (Steve Buscemi) starts to doubt the reality of The Island and question the nature of his own existence. Which, to be fair, you would do too if you lived in the perfume commercial Lincoln and Jordan Two-Delta (Scarlett Johansson) find themselves in.

All desaturated colours and whooshing doors, white spaces and cold architecture, it looks like the setting for a moody sci-fi parable. But remember, this is a Michael Bay film...

Why are we here? What's it all about? Are we simply pawns in the greater scheme of things? These are all questions that might have been asked. Unfortunately, if they were, they were drowned out by the sound of helicopters. Because after the promising build-up, it's time for a chase scene. And for Bay, that means helicopters. Lots of them. The man seems to have a fetish for rotor blades that rivals Tarantino's love of feet. From now until the end of the picture, you're never too far from some whirlybird action.

So, following the now-accepted Hollywood wisdom that more is more, the resulting mid-section is made up of action sequences. Some of them are breathtakingly fun, such as the freeway race where Lincoln deters the pack of chasing bad guys by offloading mammoth railroad wheels into their path (picture Bad Boys II's car carnage - only bigger). Or the bit where our heroes ride a flying motorbike through an office block (don't ask...).

But there's only so much action you can take before videogame syndrome takes over and whole minutes pass before you realise you haven't been paying any attention.

The final third goes on far too long but does calm down a bit. Well, actually, not much, even though the leads gamely try to keep the audience locked in. McGregor is excellent, especially in the scenes with his sinister other self. Whether required to be naïve and driven or sleazy and assured, he manages both with aplomb. While Johansson's two tasks are to appear vacuous and/or stunning. She also manages both. Especially the stunning.

All the supports are solid. Buscemi, predictably. Duncan, with little material but a gutwrenching scene that is genuinely unsettling. Meanwhile, Djimon Hounsou has clearly been instructed to bring some gravitas to proceedings, which he almost manages despite a paucity of decent dialogue. Even Sean Bean's not bad (until he has a bit of emoting to do near the end).

The problem, essentially, is the script, which, while slick, has no soul. Writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci previously worked on TV's Alias and, as with that show, what resembles a layered plot is ultimately revealed to be just layers of gloss.

For the most part, this almost suits the ad-slickness of a film where the cinematography feels like it's all been done in Photoshop. But there are a couple of clunking moments where Bay tritely alludes to gas chambers and concentration camps. Like DreamWorks' other recent offering, the shoed-in allegories sit uncomfortably in what is otherwise decent popcorn fare. Unlike War Of The Worlds, however, The Island does maintain a sense of humour. And is not totally without insight into the human condition: as McCord wisely says, "Never give a woman your credit card."

Superficially smarter than previous Bay movies, this is still big, stupid, spectacular fun. Shave off half an hour and you could add a point or two.… Expand

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5

FuturedirectorDec 18, 2016

The island's excelently entertaining story-telling and it's magnificent interpretations cannot be saved of its excesive explotions, inhumanity and deaths that damages its nice plot.

0 of 7 users found this helpful07

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6

FilmMasterEddyAug 13, 2016

It’s the year 2019, and Lincoln Six Echo (Ewan McGregor) is one of several hundred survivors of a cataclysm that left the whole world contaminated, save one place — the eponymous Island. This lush retreat, Lincoln and the other refugees areIt’s the year 2019, and Lincoln Six Echo (Ewan McGregor) is one of several hundred survivors of a cataclysm that left the whole world contaminated, save one place — the eponymous Island. This lush retreat, Lincoln and the other refugees are promised, will one day be their home. For now, they’re kept in a lavish but sterile research facility, where authorities force them to wear identifying wrist bracelets; their moods, diet and metabolism are carefully monitored; and male-female “proximity” is strictly forbidden.

Suspicious by nature and prone to prophetic nightmares, Lincoln finds his worst fears confirmed after Starkweather (Michael Clarke Duncan), selected by random lottery to go to the Island, instead winds up on a slab. When his friend and burgeoning love interest, Jordan Two Delta (Scarlett Johansson), is the next one to win the lottery, Lincoln grabs her and together they stage a jailbreak. Alarmed by the breach, sinister mastermind Dr. Merrick (Sean Bean, adding another to his gallery of villains) hires a mercenary (Djimon Hounsou) to hunt them down.

One of the small charms of “The Island” is that its test-tube protags, far from being hardened heroes, are a pair of brainwashed innocents, sealed off from the outside world and generally lacking in social smarts. McGregor exploits this most winningly, affecting an earnest gee-whiz streak and speaking his lines in a boyish, slightly higher register.

Faring not so well is Johansson, usually the subtlest of actresses, who in her first major action role has been encouraged to make a shrill, bombastic spectacle of her character’s cluelessness.

Another downside of Lincoln and Jordan’s ignorance is that by the time they realize what’s up — that they’re walking “insurance policies,” raised only to supply organs for their genetically identical owners — auds will have long since figured everything out.

While the essentially surprise-free narrative plays catch-up, there’s little to do but sit back and admire Nigel Phelps’ gleaming production design; the biotech facility, in particular, suggests a cross between a day spa, a spaceship and a maximum-security prison. Yet even here, Bay’s direction zips along at such an unmodulated rush, so eager to get on with the next set-piece or expository line of dialogue, that auds will have precious little time to soak up the images, much less allow their potentially troubling implications to deepen and resonate.

Setting and premise conjure countless visual and thematic echoes from other films, including “The Matrix,” with its paranoid dystopian vision and roomful of sticky birth-pods, and even “The Truman Show,” with its 24-hour surveillance cameras and megalomaniacal controller. One scene, featuring an army of mechanized, eye-scanning spiders, is lifted straight out of the more convincingly futuristic “Minority Report.”

The references feel thoroughly secondhand; Bay ultimately is interested in the science and ethics of cloning only insofar as they provide a backdrop for all the vehicular chaos he’s set to unleash. (Ancillary moral: Clones are human, too.)

In terms of spectacle, pic is a pileup of kinetic mayhem, as Lincoln and Jordan’s first actions in the real world include dodging bullets, destroying several police cars and crashing a hovercraft into a skyscraper.

Yet for all the vertiginous camera movements and ace visual effects, the action remains tension-free and largely incoherent, thanks to attention-deficit editing by Paul Rubell and Christian Wagner.

Scribes Caspian Tredwell-Owen, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci save their best lines for the superbly snarky Steve Buscemi, as a facility staffer who comes to the clones’ aid (and has a priceless exchange with “Ghost World” co-star Johansson in the process). And pic has sly fun with Lincoln’s and Jordan’s “owners”; former is played by McGregor in an effective second role, while latter is glimpsed in Johansson’s real-life Calvin Klein ad. Other product placements, particularly by Aquafina, are too numerous to mention.

“The Island” is no paradise. In his latest exercise in sensory overkill, producer-helmer Michael Bay takes on the weighty moral conundrums of human cloning, resolving them in a storm of bullets, car chases and more explosions than you can shake a syringe at. 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.… Expand

0 of 10 users found this helpful010

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6

ThreeboxIndoorsDec 22, 2016

The Island had such great potential with an intriguing premise - and while it is a good movie, it could've been so much more. The first act tries to be mysterious, with Lincoln Six Echo questioning his life. However, for me anyway, it feltThe Island had such great potential with an intriguing premise - and while it is a good movie, it could've been so much more. The first act tries to be mysterious, with Lincoln Six Echo questioning his life. However, for me anyway, it felt like a very weak build up to a first-half-second-act that is actually rather good and exciting. Lincoln is the protagonist, played by Ewan McGregor, who felt a bit robotic and obviously just didn't suit his character at all. His character i found bland and unlikeable, and he has this high voice in the movie that got on my nerves. I don't have a problem with the rest of the cast, and Steve Buscemi was terrific. Scarlett Johannson plays Jordan, the love interest in the movie, who didn't really do anything until right up at the end. The way she and Lincoln meets just felt extremely forced, and the reason she comes on this big journey with him was so convenient. But there is a moment that happens later in the movie when Jordan and Lincoln are stuck in a seemingly imposs - sorry, i mean litterally impossible situation, and i'm wondering what brilliant writing could ever come up with a plausable solution. They manage to survive - but in an insanely ridiculous and impossible way, and the writing there was just flat-out lazy. There are some genius moments in the movie, and some really good humor amongst lots of stupid humor as well. But in the end, The Island is just the same old Michael Bay movie with the same tired structure and cheesy, lazy and unmemorable one-liners and the same Michael Bay movie tropes. It has some great parts to it, a great, exciting first-half-second-act, and some very surprisingly suspenseful moments, and nothing that you could look at and say is terrible. But it definitely has its stupid moments and cliches we've all known to expect from a Michael Bay movie. In the end i am going to give it a 6/10.… Expand

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5

MasadaAug 4, 2019

Not many movies are saved by the story until about the middle. Just yikes. Bay's directing style gives me headaches.

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6

AWESOM-0Feb 4, 2020

Not terrible and for what it is, it's entertaining. Not exactly smart sci-fi but smart for a Michael bay movie.

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6

atabeyordekciAug 19, 2021

A man living in a futuristic sterile colony begins to question his circumscribed existence when his friend is chosen to go to the Island, the last uncontaminated place on earth. (6)

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6

JayE.Jan 10, 2008

The film is like a watered down of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Watered down int the sense that it borrows many of scenarios of the Huxley's book but avoids the deeper political, social, educational, philosophical, class The film is like a watered down of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Watered down int the sense that it borrows many of scenarios of the Huxley's book but avoids the deeper political, social, educational, philosophical, class division themes that Huxley uses so skillfully - replacing them with a pretty shallow narrative of the sanctity of human life and the corruption of those who would exploit it. The villains of Huxley's novel are far more complex. They are not motivated by petty greed but by a philosophical conviction in the appropriateness of their actions. This makes their actions and the world they create all the more macabre and compelling. As entertainment not so bad a movie. But I was just left feeling - wow wouldn't it be great if Huxley's novels were reproduced properly and not just squeezed in to the Hollywood formula. Entertainment does not have to be mindless. Deep social commentary does not have to be boring.… Expand