The Island

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

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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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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

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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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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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5

AndyTDec 23, 2005

A familiar life is not what you think it is plot that turns your mind upside down but you'll forget about the next day. Some good action. Plot moves a little slow. almost bored me with the is it going to end yet?...Not terrible but not A familiar life is not what you think it is plot that turns your mind upside down but you'll forget about the next day. Some good action. Plot moves a little slow. almost bored me with the is it going to end yet?...Not terrible but not worth anything more than a rent.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful

5

MelissaMDec 27, 2005

If you can get past the stupid premise, not a bad action movie. Could have been bettter and definitely not Ewan's best work.

0 of 0 users found this helpful

5

PatC.Oct 23, 2006

Keeps going and going until finally it gets nowhere. The jerky editing makes the action scenes incoherent. The plot works, but seems forced.

0 of 0 users found this helpful

5

JerryBJun 28, 2009

Please will you people stop typing what the movie is about let em watch it. Give your rating and keep it moving.

0 of 0 users found this helpful

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

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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.

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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

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

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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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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.

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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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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

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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

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3

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.

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3

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

0 of 1 users found this helpful

3

OenmeteenkNov 26, 2005

Starts of interesting, but then falls deep in a mindless and plotless action flick, with a really cheesy ending. Too bad.

0 of 0 users found this helpful

2

GaborA.Jan 18, 2006

Definitly not one of the worst movies of all time, perhaps the year, but undoubtadly one of dumbest. Simply too stupid for words to describe.

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2

ShawnS.Mar 18, 2008

The very definition of a thundering bore. Briefly, there's a chase sequence that never engages us because it substitutes any real sense of hide-and-seek, or imminent discovery, for shots of people running, helicopters whirring, voices The very definition of a thundering bore. Briefly, there's a chase sequence that never engages us because it substitutes any real sense of hide-and-seek, or imminent discovery, for shots of people running, helicopters whirring, voices shouting... all editing, no intelligence. But here's how bad the movie is: it wastes a luminous Scarlett Johansson with a mannequin script. THAT's the real crime here.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful

2

ibrahimCAug 25, 2005

I've seen cadillac, puma, msn...advertisements, not a movie. I regret.

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1

AngryManJan 23, 2006

What the hell was that?! I'm getting really ****** off with the whole world of film making, as well as with that surprisingly large proportion of people who sincerely believe that stuff like this is of a high standard. I guess it's What the hell was that?! I'm getting really ****** off with the whole world of film making, as well as with that surprisingly large proportion of people who sincerely believe that stuff like this is of a high standard. I guess it's a sign of the times we're living in. 1 point goes to all those whose combined efforts resulted in me paying to rent this **** and suffer it for 30 minutes before swiching it off in disgust.… Expand

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1

MilaM.Mar 27, 2007

One movie shows the struggle between two people and their search for more knowledge. Reality is, the people really aren

0 of 0 users found this helpful

1

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

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1

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

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The Island

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