The Island (2005)
Directed by Michael Bay
In 2019, Lincoln Six-Echo is a resident of a seemingly "Utopian" but contained facility. Like all of the inhabitants of this carefully-controlled environment, Lincoln hopes to be chosen to go to The Island — reportedly the last uncontaminated location on the planet. But Lincoln soon discovers that everything about his existence is a lie.
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21 films that influenced The Island
What critics say influenced The Island
Another car chase, surely, or another grisly scene of medical malfeasance, whether in the form of implanting tiny crawling robotic critters under someone's eyelid or some unsavory business involving a bone saw, or yet one more reference to (or rip-off from) "Blade Runner" or "Logan's Run" or "Gattaca" or "Minority Report" or "The Island of Dr. Moreau" or "Austin Powers" (unintentional, but there are scenes featuring McGregor's character and his nemesis, played by Sean Bean, that can't help but conjure Dr. Evil).
The film's three screenwriters borrow heavily from such post-apocalyptic adventures as "Logan's Run," and, of course, Orwell's "1984."
Obviously, the concept of having naive humans escape from a seemingly perfect utopian society has "Logan's Run" written all over it.
The resultant motion picture is sort of a combination "THX-1138," "Logan's Run," "Blade Runner," and "The Matrix."
Playing out somewhat like “Logan’s Run” meets “Total Recall”, the tale unfolds along predictable but enjoyable lines with the odd flash of creativity (eg. the holographic shield) and an impressively picturesque opening nightmare sequence.
The plot and theme of the film is in many ways similar to a personal favourite of mine, Logan’s Run .
Another car chase, surely, or another grisly scene of medical malfeasance, whether in the form of implanting tiny crawling robotic critters under someone's eyelid or some unsavory business involving a bone saw, or yet one more reference to (or rip-off from) "Blade Runner" or "Logan's Run" or "Gattaca" or "Minority Report" or "The Island of Dr. Moreau" or "Austin Powers" (unintentional, but there are scenes featuring McGregor's character and his nemesis, played by Sean Bean, that can't help but conjure Dr. Evil).
But writer Caspian Tredwell-Owen - who adapted his own story with co-screenwriters Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci - was also inspired by Philip K. Dick's "Blade Runner," which proposed the notion of having manufactured humans fight for their identities after being implanted with previously existing memories.
The resultant motion picture is sort of a combination "THX-1138," "Logan's Run," "Blade Runner," and "The Matrix."
Their hesitation to kiss, you see, comes from the fact they're playing harvested beings, or replicants -- to borrow a term from "Blade Runner," which Michael Bay's movie has ransacked like WorldCom's Bernard Ebbers.
Possessing no new ideas, it reworks and borrows from such films as Blade Runner, The Matrix and Logan's Run.
Obviously people will make comparisons to Blade Runner and Logan's Run , and some from writer Philip K. Dick.
Others may be reminded of The Matrix and Minority Report , but The Island isn't in the same league.
Unfortunately, it turns out that the entire topic of cloning is just an excuse for protracted action sequences, some lifted a little too obviously from films like Minority Report and The Matrix Reloaded.
But in “The Island,” a sort of Logan’s rerun that also splices in DNA from “Minority Report” and “Total Recall,” director Michael Bay fills the screen with broken glass by throwing stones at Hollywood’s own house.
It's not all a wash: the conception of the future is a bit silly and feels like it's ripping off Minority Report in ways that don't make sense (Los Angeles, 2019: City of ski lift trains), but it's a good movie to rip off, and while the movie does some terrible things with its setting, at least it looks nice.
"The Island" has certain special effects, not its largest or most sensational, that reminded me of the creativity in a film like Spielberg's " Minority Report ."
It is based on a little-seen 1979 feature called The Clonus Horror, in which citizens are promised a paradise called "America" rather than The Island, but it comes across as a compendium of dystopian visions that has echoes of The Matrix, Logan's Run, Blade Runner, Gattaca and THX 1138 plus a few reprises of some moments from Bay's own repertoire.
Lincoln Six Echo (McGregor) and Jordan Two Delta (Johansson) live in a sterile THX 1138 dystopia where everyone has the education of a fifteen-year-old (which, for Bay, means they're just cracking that Dick & Jane primer), meaningless assembly-line jobs, no concept of sex or sexuality, and letters/numbers for names.
The result is a sci-fier with roots in such films as "Logan's Run," "THX 1138," "Looker" and "Coma," that devolves into one big chase scene after another with lots of explosions.
The picture is an unabashed pastiche, clapping together elements of such earlier sci-fi films as "THX 1138," "Logan's Run," "Minority Report" and, of course, "Blade Runner."
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It is based on a little-seen 1979 feature called The Clonus Horror, in which citizens are promised a paradise called "America" rather than The Island, but it comes across as a compendium of dystopian visions that has echoes of The Matrix, Logan's Run, Blade Runner, Gattaca and THX 1138 plus a few reprises of some moments from Bay's own repertoire.
The real source, though, is a 1979 sci-fi cheapie called The Clonus Horror, probably best known as the subject of a satiric drubbing by the cut-ups at “Mystery Science Theater 3000.”
Much of the connect-the-dots plot is similar to "The Clonus Horror," a laughable, low-budget B-movie bomb from 1979, which fumbled with inferences about the fallacies of the American Dream.
Another car chase, surely, or another grisly scene of medical malfeasance, whether in the form of implanting tiny crawling robotic critters under someone's eyelid or some unsavory business involving a bone saw, or yet one more reference to (or rip-off from) "Blade Runner" or "Logan's Run" or "Gattaca" or "Minority Report" or "The Island of Dr. Moreau" or "Austin Powers" (unintentional, but there are scenes featuring McGregor's character and his nemesis, played by Sean Bean, that can't help but conjure Dr. Evil).
Fans of cult sci-fi may notice overt echoes of Logan’s Run, Gattaca, or THX-1138.
But here, before the Bayisms start in earnest, it's moving and spooky and kind of real, both due to McGregor's slow and convincing awakening and to the familiarity of his surroundings, a cross between Steven Spielberg's "Minority Report" and Andrew Niccol's "Gattaca," a surreal world that by now feels sincere.
The movie feels as if it were once much smarter -- something on the order of Andrew Niccol's Gattaca -- and, sure enough, it probably was.
Thematically it’s just too familiar: “Gattaca,” “The Truman Show,” “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
Wow: Logan's Run! Cool, look, GATTACA !
Others may be reminded of The Matrix and Minority Report , but The Island isn't in the same league.
It’s when Lincoln Six Echo (Ewan McGregor), begins to question his monochromatic wardrobe and his restrictive diet that “The Island” begins to reveal some colourful promise, even though the discovery of sticky birth-pods is straight out of “The Matrix.”
The resultant motion picture is sort of a combination "THX-1138," "Logan's Run," "Blade Runner," and "The Matrix."
Possessing no new ideas, it reworks and borrows from such films as Blade Runner, The Matrix and Logan's Run.
No such order was ever given to director Michael Bay, however: Peaceful moments are few in this hyperactive knockoff of "Logan's Run" (with a few pages from "The Matrix" thrown in for good measure), and even when the action threatens to slow down, Bay ("Armageddon," "Bad Boys II") attempts to keep the pulse racing by shooting even the simplest conversations with a jiggly, jittery camera that must have been loaded with caffeine as well as film.
The screenplay, by the writing team of Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, and based on a story by Caspian Tredwell-Owen, starts off like The Matrix by keeping us in the dark.
The news is not good -- think less Deepak Chopra, more Charlton Heston in "Soylent Green."
The plot? It’s not a far cry from Soylent Green.
The film up to this point is solid future-paranoia “Soylent Green”-style hi-jinks, full of intelligent discourse and other surprises.
Though obviously rooted in present-day concerns about genetic engineering and cloning, the story has been cleverly cobbled from a quartet of classic '70s era sci-fi thrillers: "THX-1138," "Logan's Run," "Coma" and "Soylent Green."
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The Island is reminiscent of Arnold Schwarzenegger's Total Recall , which used science fiction ideas as a backdrop for lots of fights, chases, and other assorted excitement.
In fact, it’s only later on, when they’re dressing like Eurotrash and screwing, that they become pretty disposable (kind of like how “Earth Girls are Easy” just isn’t as much fun once Jim Carrey and Damon Wayans lose the dayglo body hair).