I remember
seeing the preview for The Island 11 years ago and wondering what the
hell the movie was about. The lack of clarity in the preview didn’t exactly
make me rush to the cinemas to see it.
Talk about bad
marketing—this movie is a prime example. The catchline, “PLAN YOUR ESCAPE,”
made me think the movie was about a group of people on an island playing a game
where they had to figure out how to escape to avoid being killed. Turns out,
the movie had nothing to do with that idea.
I finally got
around to watching it last night at a friend’s place, and honestly, the movie
isn’t that great. It delivers a thrilling chase of clones versus their makers,
which keeps you glued to the screen. The problem, though, is the uneven pacing.
The beginning drags with a slow, boring dive into the self-discovery of the two
leads. The movie only kicks into gear when they escape, and even then, the
tension feels uneven until they finally succeed in their mission.
Another big,
unbelievable “no” in the movie is the sex scene. It felt completely unnecessary
and gave off major B-movie vibes. Michael Bay must have thought a sex scene
between Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson would draw crowds, but that didn’t
work—The Island was a box-office bomb.
The actual plot
is set in the future (2019), where people insure their survival by paying for
the creation of clones kept in a vegetative state for organ harvesting. What
they don’t know is that the clones aren’t vegetative—they’re fully alive,
mentally aware (with the intelligence of a 15-year-old), and told that the
outside world is contaminated. They’re kept underground, supposedly safe from
the contamination, and killed when their “owner” needs an organ.
After years of
this system running smoothly, a batch of clones starts becoming smarter and
more aware of what’s really going on. One of the clones, Lincoln Six Echo (Ewan
McGregor), discovers a moth and follows it to a vent, leading him to believe
the outside world isn’t contaminated. He also uncovers the truth about the
island—it’s just a holding place where clones are kept alive to be killed
later. The clones are lured to their deaths under the guise of a lottery where
the “winner” gets to leave the island.
Lincoln Six Echo
and his friend Jordan Two Delta (Scarlett Johansson) escape from the island
into the real world to expose the horrors happening there.
In the end, go see a better movie.
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