The Attire of the Clones

Movie Review: The Island

This movie must take place in a perpetual state of "before Labor Day." Apparently, our future is full of clones wearing fancy white jumpsuits with Nike shoes - but if they look like Ewan McGregor.

Where to begin...the premise of this movie is that in 14 years, the rich and elite of the future can purchase a clone of themselves to be created in case they need organ transplants as an insurance policy...ewww creepy. The trick is, the clones have to idea what their purpose is. They live in this highly controlled world, or should I say bunker, being told they are the only survivors of a fatally contaminated Earth, where they have an ultimate goal of getting to The Island where they can live free, in the only remaining pathogen-free environment.

The action in this movie was somewhat enjoyable, but the sci-fi side was a little much. This movie boiled down to a few great moments surrounded by filler materials including some of the most insulting product placement I have ever seen...Scarlet Johansson plays a clone of her Calvin Klein persona??? C'mon Hollywood, couldn't you have shot some of your own material instead of making us look at the already overused print and TV ads for Eternity? I guess this way Calvin Klein PAID you and therefore it cost you nothing to include it, eh? There were some other obvious placements, but they weren't nearly as annoying.

Ewan did shine for one part of the movie when he got to play against...wait for it...HIMSELF! But overall, I think this movie played the role of "if we aren't careful, this could be come a reality." Basically, this is not that much of a stretch of raising our clones to standby for a liver or kidney should we want to live forever, but personally I would rather we spent money on finding cures instead of ways to cheat death with no regard for the moral consequences.

What humors me most about this entire experience is that the least used actor in this movie, Michael Clarke Duncan (who admits he worked only 2 days and is on screen for maybe 7 minutes total), is doing the press tour of talk shows and I have yet to see the stars scheduled for anything.

Save your $8 to $10 and pop this one in your Netflix queue today so you don't forget about it as soon as it leaves the theatres for oblivion. However, if you just want a couple of hours of mindless entertainment, or to get out of the rain and you have seen everything else, feel free to waste the time.