The Island - 6

Critics have been awfully harsh to director/producer Michael Bay. This film flopped in theaters because this film was not suppose to really break any new ground and Bay has a bad rap of making films just so stuff will blow up (that's the best explanation I can come up with, maybe people don't like movies with Scarlett Johansson and Ewan McGregor. I highly doubt that). This film is not mind blowing, although the special effects and action scenes are very well done. I have to admit it makes me smile to see stuff getting blown up and intricate car crashes (although I like them to stay on the screen, rather than coming to life). The story is more than 2,000 years old. Like The Matrix, Dark City, and many other sci-fi films it is based on Plato's Allegory of the cave, it has a new face of course, and in this case it takes place in 2019. The feel of the story is in line with other recent futuristic films like Code 46 and Gattaca. The acting is pretty well done even if you know what the characters are going to do before they do. And in a real sense it does deal with an issues that in a more simple form already faces us. Should we clone ourselves for spare parts in order to extend our life. The main thing I enjoy about these kinds of films is investigating the assumptions the author has about what it means to be human. It is interesting to that these assumptions also direct the ethics of individuals and society.