New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

So, this week, I picked a Michael Bay film that I recall more fondly than most of his previous work. I remembered watching The Island when it first came out, mainly because I am a big Ewan McGregor fan. And... like most of America at the time, I might have been a little fascinated with Scarlett Johansson. As I said in my review of The Rock, this is how Michael Bay draws you in. He attracts quality talent, no doubt with the charms inherent in that beaming lion’s mane of his. I mean, who wouldn’t want to see Mark Renton and Rebecca from Ghost World in a futuristic sci-fi thriller reminiscent of a Gattaca/Blade Runner mashup? I’d give that a chance even if Brett Ratner made it.

That said, I believe I implied that The Island is a futuristic sci-fi thriller reminiscent of a Gattaca/Blade Runner...yeah. Good. That it is, with a charismatically docile guy called Lincoln Six-Echo (Ewan McGregor) being our lead Echo. It’s the year 2019, and Lincoln lives in an architecturally sterile community where every aspect of his life is monitored and benevolently controlled. He has an unlimited supply of fresh clothes, a toilet that tells him the sodium content of his piss, and terrifying nightmares about albino shark-men, night after night.

I know. If ONLY. But not all is as it seems, since if it were, there’d be no reason to watch.

The upsides are the matching designer tracksuits, all you can drink Aquafina, and the way (almost) everyone is physically attractive and under 50. It’s as though someone mixed an Orangetheory with the police station in Minority Report and made it the whole world. Downsides are the omnipresent, black-clad security squads, and a mysterious “lottery,” whereby random winners are transported to a wondrous place called The Island. Apparently, The Island is so great, it’s even BETTER than living in a weirdly socialist, concrete and glass health resort filled with meathead gym-cops.

And... I guess there’s the part where they regulate what you eat, how much you sleep, and give you a hard time about your nightmares. Lincoln starts out having a bad day, but immediately attracts the attention of another resident by the name of Jordan Two-Delta (ScarJo), simply because they’re the main characters. It turns out the reason everything looks like the made for TV version of THX-1138 is because this insular community is all that remains of humanity. Some sort of biological disaster has befallen the earth, and everyone has a strictly regulated role to play in this blue tinted utopia.

Lincoln seems to be the only person who has a problem with all this, though. He wonders about little things like why everyone must dress the same and what’s the deal with Tofu Night? He probably also wonders why all the residents have the apparent intellectual capability of a child, except the gym-cops and the placidly sinister guy who runs the place, Dr. Bernard Merrick (Sean Bean).

Continued:       1       2       3