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Take the DNA of Robert Fiveson's little-seen 1981 chiller The Clonus Horror (aka Parts); add hefty doses of Paul Verhoeven's widely-seen 1994 Philip K Dick adaptation Total Recall; throw in a few touches of Gattaca, Seconds, Logan's Run, Minority Report and Coma for good measure... and you get Caspian Tredwell-Owen's story for The Island. Filter that story through a commercially-minded rewrite by screenwriting team Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (the script is credited to Tredwell-Owen and the pair), then pass the resulting melange through the slam-bang sensibilities of blockbuster-machine director Michael Bay and - hey presto! - a summer smash is (truly) born.

Or not. The Island limped to $12m in its opening weekend, becoming instantly notorious as summer 2005's biggest box-office disaster - much to the delight of critics on both sides of the Atlantic, who took the opportunity to give all concerned a thorough kicking. Trouble is, The Island isn't actually a "turkey" at all - while not quite up to the standard of Tim Burton's deliriously enjoyable Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, it's certainly no worse than, say, Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds. According to Variety magazine, Spielberg personally asked Bay to take charge of The Island, and "offered creative input during the shoot," although it doesn't say if said 'creative input' was actually accepted. (Amateur psychologists and collectors of Hollywood tittle-tattle, meanwhile, may speculate that a factor behind Bay taking the assignment may be his much-disputed familial connection to Seconds' director John Frankenheimer).

It has to be said that, despite moments of his trademark bombastic over-stylishness, Bay has done a pretty solid job here. It might perhaps been better, however, if Spielberg had offered the gig to Verhoeven, an out-of-fashion name who's been sorely in need of a viable Hollywood project for several years now (and whose Dutch war-movie Zwartboek has reportedly just gone into production after a six-month delay). Bay doesn't bring the irreverent zest and verve of the Verhoeven who made Total Recall, Starship Troopers and Robocop, but he does nimbly juggle the science-fiction and action aspects of what has struck many (though not this reviewer) as a broken-backed script, switching from one genre to the other about one-third of the way in. The real problem comes much later, however, with an overextended series of climaxes as the running-time sprawls bloatedly and ill-advisedly beyond the two-hour mark.

The finale does feature a particularly striking image: an aerial shot of white-suited figures walking over a landscape of dark red volcanic dust. The Island is thus bookended with what Francois Truffaut called coups de cinema: in the first few minutes, we enter the mind of Lincoln Six Echo (Ewan McGregor) as he experiences a traumatic nightmare of drowning; as he wakes Mauro Fiore's camera pulls back to show his bed quickly emerging from the ocean depths.

It's 2019, and Lincoln is one of the last remaining inhabitants of an earth ravaged by an unspecified 'contamination'. Sequestered in a hermetically-sealed, opulent facility, the survivors are selected by regular lottery to move to The Island, the last unpolluted section of the outside world. Instructed to be "polite, pleasant and peaceful," their mental and physical health are closely monitored: friendships are tolerated, but "proximity" is a no-no - Lincoln's budding attraction to Jordan Two Delta (Scarlett Johansson) soon comes to the authorities' attention. Meanwhile Lincoln is becoming curious about his environment - and stumbles across the horrifying truth: the 'survivors' are in fact clones of rich folk, created in labs and rapidly brought to maturity in order to supply their 'originals' with spare parts thus prolonging their lifespan. So when Jordan "wins" the "lottery", Lincoln realises the necessity of rapid and drastic action...

Lincoln and Jordan's exit to the real world in search of their originals - who aren't aware that their clones are anything other than insensate organic blobs - is the moment when Bay switches gears from sci-fi to action, the transition smoothed by the exposition-spouting presence of Steve Buscemi as sympathetic facility-worker McCord. Fans of Philip K Dick will recognise the transition as an inversion of that in his classic, as-yet-unfilmed novel Time Out of Joint, in which the slobby hero discovers that his unremarkable existence in early-sixties America is in fact a simulation created in his "future". 'Phildickian' touches abound - whereas Dick adaptations such as Blade Runner and Total Recall tend to explore one or the other of the writer's two chief questions, 'what is human?' and 'what is reality?', The Island pulls off the rare feat of dramatising both at the same time.

In addition, the scriptwriters and Bay deserve credit for the numerous little touches that indicate a level of wit and intelligence that's a cut above what you'd expect in a Hollywood summer blockbuster: not least the the use of Mozart's Ave Verum Corpus ("Hail, True Body") on the soundtrack. And how refreshing to see a future world which isn't dystopian - if anything, the Los Angeles of 2019 is a little too good to be true, as this megalopolis is served by an efficient, busy, ultra-high-tech public transport system of sky-trams. And America even has a fully functioning, state-of-the-art train network - there's a Union Station showdown which might well feature in any future update of Thom Andersen's Los Angeles Plays Itself.

Even the much-criticised product-placement is, on closer inspection, rather cleverly done: the likes of Puma, X-Box and bottled-water Aquafina are indeed prominently on display, but in such a sinister fashion (especially the water) that it's hard to imagine the companies' sales are likely to get much of a boost. Calvin Klein also gets a look-in - the real-life personas of actors McGregor and Johansson are deployed with real aplomb when Jordan and Lincoln finally get to see their 'originals,' Johansson via one of her actual cK ads. But the niftiest touch of all is McGregor's extended cameo as the motorbike-mad Tom Lincoln, his rough Scottish accent, Trainspotting vocabulary ("shite!") and sexual savvy in amusing counterpoint to the bland American tones of his renegade, virgin clone. Another highlight coems when we, along with Lincoln Six Echo and Jordan Two Delta (would Andy McNab's clone be called 'Bravo Two Zero'?) learn their real ages: they manage to break Seabiscuit's record for having the youngest lead character(s) in Hollywood history.

Neil Young
14th August 2005

THE ISLAND : [7/10] : USA 2005 : Michael BAY : 136 mins
seen at Odeon cinema, Newcastle-upon-Tyne (UK), 8th August 2005 - press show

NB: originally rated 7/10, but downgraded after further reflection, 10th Oct 2005; re-upped 12th July 2007


* Sinking 'Island' : the ripple effect,
article by Nicole LaPorte, Variety (August 1 -7, 2005), p6:
Marketing was an issue for the film, in part because "The Island," which is a futuristic pic about human clones, has both action and sci-fi elements. In effect, it's two movies, something many reviewers have noted, and the purported reason that producer Jerry Bruckheimer - Bay's longtime partner on all his previous films - passed on it.
Throughout the making of "The Island," there was disagreement among DreamWorks marketing execs [executives], producers Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald and Bay over which element to see. At first, the studio went for the sci-fi/cloning theme. When this failed to resonate with auds [audiences], they pushed the action angle.