!(floatLeft)1!:2 “Sean(Sean van Staveren)”:http://www.vanstaveren.com/ and I had been trying to get together to see a movie or hang out since before we went to Orlando. Schedules and life were never able to mesh up in that regard unfortunately. Finally Friday night, we were able to catch a late movie so we went to see “The Island(They don’t want you to know what you are…)”:http://imdb.com/title/tt0399201/. Sean and Kateri had dinner plans at “The Melting Pot(A fondue restaurant)”:http://www.meltingpot.com/ earlier in the evening so we were going to need to catch a late showing. “Airic(Airic van Staveren)”:http://www.airic.com/ decided to join us as well.
I had heard a few pleasant reviews of “The Island” but the “box office draw(Box Office results for The Island)”:http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=island05.htm for it hasn’t been overwhelming. This set my expectations middle to low which is exactly where I like them to be when I see a film.
The idea behind “The Island” is that the protagonists live in a post-apocalyptic world that has been ravaged by a biological plague wiping out life on the planet. The survivors are in a contained and controlled environment living out their lives until the win a lottery that allows them to go to The Island. The Island is the only place on the planet that is free of the plague. It is like a Garden of Eden that the winners of the lottery will get to repopulate and ensure humanity’s survival. Sometimes new survivors are found and they are brought into the facility. The life of the people living in the facility is unfortunately a lie. They are really clones that are an “insurance policy” for individuals in the real world. If you are wealthy you can get a clone made and when you develop lung cancer later in your life, the organs are simply harvested from your clone. Lincoln Six-Echo (“Ewan McGregor’s(Obi-Wan Kenobi)”:http://imdb.com/name/nm0000191/ character) has dreams of events he shouldn’t that cause him to ask questions about his existence. One day he finds a butterfly from a supposedly sterile Earth and upon following it finds out the truth about his existence. The action ensues from there.
I’m not a huge fan of Michael Bay’s work (“Bad Boys II”, “Pearl Harbor” and “Armageddon”) but have found his movies to be fun action flicks. “The Island” certainly didn’t disappoint in this regard. The chase sequences were fast and fun. Airic commented to me in the middle of one, “This would be a fun video game.” I can’t disagree. The performances of Ewan McGregor and “Scarlett Johansson(She’s been in many movies I’ve never seen…)”:http://imdb.com/name/nm0424060/ were good. McGregor did a great job opposite himself when his clone met the source of his DNA. As for Scarlett Johansson… Along with her fine acting, she was definitely pleasant to look at.
If you’re wanting to see a fun film where you’re willing to suspend your disbelief for a couple of hours, I don’t think you can go wrong with “The Island”.
[1]http://ia.imdb.com/media/imdb/01/I/45/82/39m.jpg
[2]http://imdb.com/title/tt0399201/
