The Weekend in Movies: Part II - August 23, 2005

Stealth is an appropriate title for a movie that you will probably never see. The Island, starring Ewan McGregor and Scarlet Johansson, is an appropriate title for a movie that might exist at some point in the history of American film. It is not appropriate for the current Michael Bay film to which it lends its name.

I don't want to go into details about this picture or give away too much about it because I think it's worth seeing if you want to know what happens when you give a good story idea to an action film director. What happens is you get two different movies.

Here's a synopsis of the film from IMDB:

Lincoln Six-Echo (McGregor) is a resident of a seemingly utopian but contained facility in the mid 21st century. Like all of the inhabitants of this carefully controlled environment, Lincoln hopes to be chosen to go to the "The Island" - reportedly the last uncontaminated spot on the planet. But Lincoln soon discovers that everything about his existence is a lie. He and all of the other inhabitants of the facility are actually human clones.

That's the synopsis for the first 45-60 minutes of the film. The idea behind the story is actually really innovative. It's sufficiently interesting to keep even my attention, and "the island" still figures directly in the arc of the story. Obviously "the island" has nothing to do with why they are clones, but who honestly expects that much from the director of Armageddon?

I won't tell you why they've been cloned or the reasons they're housed the way they are, but it's a compelling commentary on the subject of cloning and its possible unforeseen outcomes.

Anyway, this first hour is tightly written, it's technically sound, and it's visually appealing. Scarlet Johansson is a scrumptious little morsel in a tight, monochromatic jumpsuit. The girl's got ass and birthin' hips. Deeeee-lightful.

Then comes the second half of the movie, or the "Michael Bay Half" as I like to call it. The halves are so stylistically and qualitatively different that it feels like the screenwriters and the producers said "Okay Mike, if you can dial yourself down to a 6 or a 7 for the first hour of the film, we'll give you the last hour to dial up to a 12 and spend the rest of the budget on blowing shit up." Here's the IMDB synopsis for the second half:

Lincoln makes a daring escape with a beautiful fellow resident named Jordan Two-Delta (Johansson). Relentlessly pursued by the forces of the sinister institute that once housed them, Lincoln and Jordan engage in a race for their lives to literally meet their makers.

Allow me to feed this last bit through the Michael Bay Action Film Translator so you have some idea of what really happens:

"McGregor and Johansson improbably escape thanks to lots and lots of running and broken glass. They are chased by a small army who have several of everything known to man that can create a huge fireball when shot, shot at, run into, or run over. The small army cannot seem to catch the two naive white people despite blowing up or destroying everything in their immediate vicinity. Did I mention there are huge fireballs?"

That's what the summary really means and that's exactly what happens. I'm usually cool with that when it comes to Michael Bay movies (see: Bad Boys II, The Rock) but this time it was disappointing because the actual idea behind the storyline was worth developing. Bay could have done so much with the last hour of the film to thoughtfully comment on the dangers of cloning and the depreciation of the value of human life.

Instead, he blew everything up. And I mean everything. I won't ruin any of the action for you if you decide to go see this, just be assured that Bay was able to work in his favorite action sequence:

The extended car chase involving a flatbed truck and several chase vehicles. In this one the flatbed is carrying freight train axles. FREIGHT TRAIN AXLES!! Have you ever seen train axles rolled onto a congested freeway at a high rate of speed? Neither had I, and it's fucking sweet.

It's very nearly worth the price of admission. Of course, you wouldn't know that by reading the innocuous title of this Jekyll and Hyde effort. The producers, who have been barking in the trade press about how poorly marketed this film was, would have been much better off had they just called it what it was: Michael Bay Spends $60 Million Blowing Up More Cool Shit

Posted by nils at 3:30 PM

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Comments

"That's the synopsis for the first 45-60 minutes of the film. The idea behind the story is actually really innovative."

It was more innovative when they did it in 1979. The Clonus Horror.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078062/

The MST3K episode is worth a watch.

Posted by: Cody at August 23, 2005 09:32 PM

I'm no expert and haven't seen The Island, but isn't it more the fault of Caspian Tredwell-Owen, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci than Michael Bay since the three of them wrote the screenplay? If that's the case, we can all look forward to Mission Impossible 3 and the Transformers movie being just as engaging... for whatever that's worth.

Posted by: Walter at August 24, 2005 01:07 AM

Sounds like the 70's flick "Logan's Run" with Farrah Fawcett, except this time they're clones. And shit gets blowed up. Cool, a must see.

Posted by: Steve at August 24, 2005 09:54 AM

Normally I would agree with Walter, but if you want to place all the blame at the feet of the screenwriters can you imagine what the last 30 pages of the screenplay would look like?

Lincoln and Jordan run through streets being chased

BLOW SHIT UP

Lincoln and Jordan try to hide but are discovered and chased

BLOW SHIT UP

I just can't conceive of a way that this screenplay was NOT thinned out by Bay in favor of huge fireballs and flying train axles.

Maybe I'm just being naive. I thought Once Upon A Time in Mexico was going to be good.

Posted by: DrunkRex at August 24, 2005 11:46 AM

"I just can't conceive of a way that this screenplay was NOT thinned out by Bay in favor of huge fireballs and flying train axles."

Shockingly, Bay claims he writes his own action sequences. Apparently he was behind a truck carrying train wheels on the freeway...and, well, that's how genius is born. Or something.

Posted by: CptBeefheart at August 24, 2005 02:49 PM

Who is this pathetic loser that keeps on posting Bunny's blog entry like it's the lost Testament of the Bible? Get a life loser.

On the post: Michael Bay is a terrible director and I blame him for the visual diarrhea that was "Pearl Harbor".

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