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The Diva's review of
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WARNING - SPOILERS BELOW.
The Digest
Lincoln Six Echo (Ewan McGregor) leads a mundane life , in his society that discourages dissension and uniqueness. In fact, every part of existence is controlled. What he wears, what he eats, when he wakes, his occupation, and who he can physical contact with, no less.
But this is all for his own good, you see he and the few others in his society where the inhabitants are told that they are the survivors of a great plague that wiped out mostly everyone else. Periodically a few other survivors are found and integrated into the populace and they too fall in line, but there is a bright hope on the horizon, every night there is a lottery and the winner of the lottery get to go The Island. A place that is uncontaminated and outside. A paradise where they can live freely.
But things start to change when Lincoln starts to actually formulate ideas and think for himself , he starts to sneak around and hunt for answers when he finds out that when people win the lottery, it’s not such a good thing – they die. But he doesn’t know why. However, the “why” doesn’t matter because his closest friend, Jordan Two Delta, (Scarlett Johansson), has won the lottery and knowing what happens, he grabs her and manages to escape to the outside world.
The surprise is that te outside is pretty normal. It’s nothing they are accustomed to as they were raised in the facility, but the point is there wasn’t a plague. And it turns out that Lincoln and Jordan are really clones of actual people. People who are rich enough to buy the “insurance policy” so should anything ever go wrong, they have a clone from which to harvest organs. While they are searching for the full truth, someone is searching for them. An assassin named Laurent (Djimon Hounsou) has been tasked with bringing them back alive. He is under orders from Dr., Merrick (Sean Bean), who runs the compound and has told him it is a matter of national security. Can Lincoln and Delta find their answers before it’s too late? Or will they be captured and dragged back to the medical compound only to be killed for their parts?
The Dish
When I saw that Michael Bay directed this movie, I knew two things would be true- there would be some really cool action/effects and that the movie would be about 30-40 minutes too long. Well if nothing else he was true to his nature. I think if Bay had tightened up a few scenes and trimmed a little fat, the movie would have gotten a higher rating from me. All of my issues with this movie fall squarely on his shoulders and that of the writer’s. Now, never having read the material from which this came, it might be an improvement. But as present to me, I thought the story was sorely lacking in that there were too many loose ends and plot holes and SHAME on Michael Bay for letting a GLARING continuity error slip through the cracks in the ending. Understand, as much as I complain about Michael Bay, I’m a Bruckheimer fan. I often say that it’s not summer until a Bruckheimer film comes out, but this is the first time the two have not collaborated. Could this be the problem?
One thing I did enjoy was Ewan McGregor especially when he was dealing with his double. In fact, I really like him period. I think Sean Bean correctly captured a man playing God, but not realizing it. The aloofness he has about the lives of the clones was spot on. Scarlett didn’t impress me much either. They did a good job of making her unearthly beautiful and that’s about it. I really did not agree with some of the decision her character made.
The Directive
Unfortunately this movie did not live up to it’s full potential, but it wasn’t horrible. Catching a matinee would not be unreasonable. Or even waiting for video might be better.
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Rated PG-13; running time of 2 hours and 18 minutes 
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More
3BlackChicks™ review(s) for this week: (movies reviewed 07-22-05): |
The Diva's reviews:
The Devil’s Rejects | The Bad News Bears |Hustle and Flow|The Island
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