The Island (2005)

I must admit I'm biased and I enjoy dystopia movies. Michael Bay puts a different spin on it. He doesn't want to keep that Blade Runner/THX/1984 atmosphere throughout. He needs to break out and he does it in his own style. So there are car chases, explosions, helicopter crashes and Force assisted stunts. But, I'm not watching Michael Bay's movies for the philosophy. Though there is enough of that. The premise of the movie is based on a common theme in conspiracy theories: that the rich people farm the rest of us, and control every aspect of our lives through what we wear, what we eat, what we see and whom we are allowed to associate with. The clothes can only be white, the food can only be healthy, the view is controlled from a holographic room and you can't touch other people. There are plenty of great special effects and the movie is quite loud. But, the performances of the leads are what's keeping the things together. There is real chemistry between the two leads. I also want to mention Steve Buscemi who is so great at quirky supporting roles.All in all it's a good movie which had the potential to be great had Michael Bay been Ridley Scott.

This movie is ridiculous. While the theme has merit and the acting is pretty good. The editor and the special effects man ruined it. The camera man should not be blamed because of the ditor. Who ever edited this movie and put the stupid small cuts one after another should never work again. Do you really want to see the quick small advertisement that flashes . We don't like that advertisement and we hate it in movies. I am not sure if it was the the director, editor or sponsor who made it not a B movie but a C movie. It was not the actors nor the script. Something went wrong with the video presentation. What could have been a good movie failed.

Is the first thing that comes to my mind when i think about The Island, because this movie is so amazing that i can't get together that it's from the same guy who made Bad Boys and Transformers...Which is a big compliment, because this is, without a doubt, his best film, but sadly also the reason he now does nothing else then Transformers, because this movie didn't made it all that well at the box-office....but Toys do...The story is really interesting and works fairly well, it's a kinda mix out of The 6th Day and Logan's Run (which i both also enjoy).The special effects are so great that my mom thought this movie was new and wondered why it's on live-TV already...The action is also great as always (mostly the Freeway chase scene) BUT, like the story, also untypical for a Bay-flick, is that the main Protagonist never use guns or anything to directly kill anyone, because that would go against their characters...which is mind blowing if you think about it...Also the actors are all very good, especially Ewan McGregor (who also played Dr. Sam Foster in "Stay" and Obi-Wan Kenobi in "Revenge of the Sith" in the same year!) and Scarlett Johansson who are incredibly believable as two clones who aren't even teenagers if you think about it.A weakness of the movie is the fast pacing which let's no room for real dramatic tension, many scenes wrap up very quickly and the characters often have no chance to properly react to the strange things which are going on around them...But apart from this, it's a very entertaining, thought provoking, sci-fi-actioner, and Michael Bays best effort...

**SPOILERS** Okay, now that I've seen three of Michael Bay's films I understand his 'thing' as an artist. He's basically a twelve year old boy with millions of dollars. But, like, the sort of twelve year old who rides a dirt bike behind a trailer park, drinks the leftover beers he finds in communal spaces, throws firecrackers at stray cats and scopes out females twice his age. Basically, Bay is a simple-minded idiot with nothing new or interesting enough to be considered anything more than lucky in the industry. He's not subtle. Not creative. Not deep. He's a what-you-see-is- what-you-get sort of artist and has marketed himself on what he does best- action. The only reason why anyone would ever see any Bay film is for the action. Screw the characters and story, if there's a reason why Bay keeps getting hired to direct, it's because he delivers with explosions, metal scraping metal and thousands upon thousands of dollars in collateral damage. So, in that regard, the film did what it was supposed to; provide ample action scenes and sprinkle in a little plot here and there. If The Giver, The Matrix and Aeon Flux didn't exist, I'd say the story was passable. But it was yet another dystopia reality film which means it demanded a flair of originality. The time the story takes place was left pretty arbitrary but if I know human nature like I do, I think it's safe to say that there's one predictable reaction to what's practically meeting a farm cow that suddenly gained existentialism- fear and violence. Over the course of time, humans have proved that the appropriate response to something new, confusing, surprising and scary is to lash out. Caution overpowers curiosity. I believe the moment Sean Bean and Steve Buscemi's characters recognized defiance and cognition in the main character, they would've quarantined and/or killed him. Considering these organ donors were kept so hush-hush from the public, you KNOW it's a secret for good reason. Why would they go to such lengths to keep them hidden then turn a blind or curious eye when there's a threat of the farm cow going public?So I get that the only people who can afford a farm cow/organ donor would be the incredibly wealthy. But I got really hung up on the occupations of the two main benefactors and how it seemed like a portrayal of bad-ass lucrative jobs according to gender. Thus, an automotive designer and a porn star. Wow. No subtleties there huh? Just a dude who draws sick motorcycles and a chick who takes a penis or two on camera. Michael Bay surprised no one by providing a female support character who's role was to serve as something to bounce dialogue off of, provide character development (for the main character) and most importantly, just look hot for the audience. That's Bay's thing; the female characters in movies serve as hot pieces of meat that help further dialogue. They're pretty unessential to the story. They're just accessories. And I think the two occupations of the main characters serve as good proof of Bay's opinion on gender roles. So clearly this is not the movie to watch if you're into gender equality. Back to the action though. Like I said, this is probably the only reason to see a Bay film. If you're like me, though, once you've seen one five minute action scene from Bay, you've seen them all. So I didn't have fun watching The Island at all. In fact I skipped the action scenes to see more plot development. In the end, I didn't finish the film because it was so unrewarding in every aspect. If I liked all the needless action, I'd say those scenes made the movie worth watching. But as someone who rolls their eyes with every Michael Bay explosion, I can safely say The Island had nothing worthwhile in it. **SPOILER-FREE CONCLUSION** Coming from someone who doesn't wet themselves over expensive and elaborate CGI action scenes and car chases, this movie is a complete waste of time. The story has been done before and the one original twist doesn't makeup for anything. The behavior is unrealistic. The main characters are so uninteresting and essentially echoes of every main characters in every Bay film. Once again, Bay demonstrates that he has a basic understanding of film and when given basically all the money he could ask for, produces what you'd expect a twelve year old prepubescent Hot Wheels fanatic to make. The action scenes are predictably very well rendered and well made and the highlight of any Bay film (if you like that stuff). This was a film made by an idiot, for idiots, hence I rate it 3/10. Points scored for big budget and notably good actors. Points lost for being a twelve year old's fever dream.