I love sci-fi, but for my money, there are very few truly good modern sci-fi movies. They're either too predictable, or poorly acted, or too CG laden to have any level of believability and sometimes they take an unfortunate sappy twist. A.I. is a near perfect film until David, for no apparent reason, gets picked up by Spielberg's malevolent aliens. Sci-fi, to a certain degree, has been done to death. However, sometimes something engaging comes along to remind us that the genre of science fiction isn't quite ready for its last rights. Today, I saw The Island and it did not disappoint.
Honestly, I was pretty skeptical of The Island. I worried that it would be The Matrix with a tropical flare, or something equally ridiculous. I also rarely like the way so-called futuristic utopian societies are depicted, as they often don't feel "real". However, the reasoning behind the utopian life in which Lincoln (Ewan McGregor) finds himself at the start of the film is quite well-conceived. Lincoln lives at a special facility, under the impression that the outside world has been obliterated by some sort of contamination. In reality, though, the facility is home to generations of human clones whose true purpose is to provide wealthy people on the outside with various healthy organs and any other genetic material that might be needed. For example, if a fellow needs a new liver after years of downing single-malt whiskey, he could get a perfect match from his clone. At first, I was skeptical as to why clones would need an entire society, being that they're basically only needed for genetic material, but the film really gives a good explanation as to why the clones are up and about, rather than comatose. Their entire existence is choreographed for a purpose. The film also deftly raises interesting philosophical questions without getting bogged down by pseudo-intellectualism.
The Island is also absolutely OUTSTANDING visually. In today's world of overblown CG imagery, it's very refreshing to see stunning visual effects and cinematography that don't remind me of playing Halo. The chase scenes are particularly compelling and among some of the best I've ever seen in ANY film.
The Island is an intelligent, fast paced sci-fi film that absolutely blew me away. Seeing a film like The Island makes me realize that sci-fi is still more than XBox inspired visuals and paper-thin acting.
Posted by Mike at July 25, 2005 07:25 PM