Well what can I say; I'm kind of having a split decision about this movie. There were some aspects that were good and others that were just plain..well...plain. The idea for the movie was pretty good it starts off in a military facility where clones of people from the "outside" world are being made. The clones don't know that of course. They are led to believe that there was a global contamination and that they were survivors. They were also told that there is one place left on the planet that wasn't contaminated, "The Island", there is a lottery every week for a lucky winner to go to the island. It's a place of peace and harmony, so they think. One clone named Lincoln Six Echo played by Ewan McGregor starts thinking and questioning more than he should. Why is he such a lucky survivor? Where are all the new people coming from if there was a global contamination?
His questioning leads him to finding out the truths behind the cloning operation and when one of his best friends Jordan Two Delta played by Scarlett Johansson, gets selected for lottery he tells her what's really happening and they make their escape. Well of course nothing can be that easy as now they have bounty hunters hired by the company to track them down and bring them back.
Now from the commercials this looked really action packed and interesting, but when it came down to it I just felt like something wasn't there. It seemed like a really typical movie and it didn't seem to have a whole lot of originality to it in my opinion. The action chase scenes are pretty good but that's really it that makes it worth watching in the theater. But I don't want to take away from this movie entirely, the movie didn't seem to drag along, actually I thought it progressed almost too fast.
The acting was great I thought, the accents Ewan McGregor used to the way he moved, I thought that was all done well. Scarlett Johansson does a good job acting as well even though her role isn't too major until the end, most of the time she's just following Ewan McGregor.
The sounds and audio were great but there was never too much that needed great audio except for the few chase scenes the movie had. There was never really any scenes with big shootouts or explosions that, if you watched this at home and didn't have surround sound, you'd be missing out on.
The effects were great I could hardly tell what was computerized and not, it seems like almost all movies are like that now. Since this movie takes place in 2019 it's obvious they are going to have some futuristic weapons and vehicles which they do and it's hard to tell what were models, what was real and what was computerized. I mean you could figure it out in your head, okay this has to be computerized, but comparing and contrasting, there's no way you could tell what was fake and what was the real deal.
The storyline, sadly, like I said seemed very unoriginal to me, I feel like I seen parts of this movie in other movies I've watched and some scenes just made me feel like they left a bunch of holes in the script. It had the potential to be an excellent movie but it failed to get there.
So there you have it, I wouldn't consider going out of your way to watch this movie in the theaters or even picking this movie over anything else that's out to watch. This is more or less something you can watch, if you're home and bored and want something to watch to kill time, coming from an average movie watchers point of view. I don't stick to just one genre.
"The Island" opens July 22, 2005 and is rated PG13. Action, Sci-Fi. Directed by Michael Bay. Written by Caspian Tredwell-Owen, Alex Kurtzman. Starring Djimon Hounsou, Ewan McGregor, Michael Clarke Duncan, Scarlett Johansson, Sean Bean, Steve Buscemi.
