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[chani]

So I saw The Island on Wednesday but couldn't review it until now since I was at Rock en Seine.

In a post-disaster world, everyting is contaminated above the ground and a bunch of survivors are living very clean lives, in some closed world full of gimmicks, and working like ants...their lives are controlled in just about every detail but they keep going on, hoping that some day they'll win the lottery and go to the only safe place left  of the outer world, the Island. They also wear numbers as name, serial numbers...But Lincoln 6 Echo (Ewan McGregor) and his friend Jordan 2 Delta (Scarlett Johansson) are about to bring some chaos on.

I don't know what to think of this movie. It has a good pace and is rather entertaining despite a few loopholes and implausibilities. It's never boring and there are funny moments (especially with Steve Buscemi!) but it looks like a mix of several Sci Fi movies from the past. There are so many borrowings and I can't really decide whether it was a wink to those previous films or simply a lack of creativity. The action scens are good but the ending is lame (between the music and the way the scen is shot it looks like an advertising clip!).

Lincoln 6 Echo whose name is quite significant, begins to question the lives they are running and the whole idea of the island since the beginning of the film, but it's only when his friend is selected, that he finds out the truth about what happens to the chosen ones and he decides to save her. Then the run ensues.

So first we have that number 6 messing everything up. Does it ring any bells? And of course he's the ony one realizing that they are prisoners and that everything is a lie. That new Prisoner wants to escape and he makes it...with his best friend the pretty Jordan 2 Delta.

The title could have been "Lincoln's run" because the movie is nothing but a new version of Logan's Run. For those who remember that movie from the 70's, starring Michael York and Farraw Fawcet and the kitsch series that followed ! In Logan's world, the people wore numbers too and couldn't live past the age of 30. In Lincoln's world they cannot live because they are only products, made to serve their sponsors. They are echoes....clones made to provide organs when the "real" people need them.

Here enters the Villain played by Sean Bean, Merrick who is the doctor/God of the clones' world, and above all the head of the firm. I think he's the best part of the film actually. He made a good villain, sinister and yet not caricatured. You can see that he's really afraid of losing his gold mine or relieved when he's told everything is solved. I must confess that Ewan MacGregor's endless goofy grin annoyed me a little and Scarlett Johansson was good, childlike and fresh as she's supposed to be but her character was kinda weak IMO.

Of course the clients have been told by Merrick that their clones are only bodies without consciousness, soulless flesh that isn't aware of anything. They don't suspect that there's a fake world in which their doubles are living, dreaming, making friends etc...But would it be different if they found out  the truth? Not sure. People would do everything to survive.

Speaking of echoes from other movies, one scene showing the harvesting of clones was closely resembling The Matrix. Another one, when Steve Buscemi told our heroes that they actually are only 3 and 4 years  and that Jordan Two Delta's memories are implants reminded me of Blade Runner (very similar scene when Rachel argues she remembers her childhood and her mother therefore she can't be a replicant). Besides the sanitized world in which the clones are working on tubes (to feed other clones that haven't been awakened yet) and the theme of eugenics call Gattaca to mind.

When Lincoln Six Echo meets his sponsor, Tom Lincoln, we've got again déjà-vu twins scenes. There's always a good one and a bad one, and of course the clone is innocent while the original edition is already corrupted enough to call Merrick's hitmen. Even the scene in which N°6 saves himself by saying he's the real Tom Lincoln and the confused hitman shoots the wrong one has been seen in other films. But here it's quite ironical because the clone takes the place of his sponsor which is a twisted version of what he was made for!

At the end of the day the irony is also that this movie is an echo, a clone of many previous (and better) films!

Comments

[kazzy-cee.livejournal.com]

Wasn't it Jenny Agutter in Logan's Run with Michael York? I remember it was two British actors doing very bad American type accents!

I wanted to see this film on Monday (we have a public holiday) but it's not on over the holiday weekend! Only Tuesday to Thursday next week. Looks like I'll have to wait until the DVD from your review anyway, although I do like Ewan McGregor......

[poshcat.livejournal.com]

Good review - thanks! I don't plan on seeing it, so the spoilers were great fun. I love knowing spoilers for movies I'm probably not going to see. The plot was cool, but Hollywood always screws it up. Let's put in more car chases! That will fix EVERYTHING. Hee.

I remember Farah in Logan's run. She was a nobody then. Michael York was a hottie to my young, impressionable girl self. I remember being scandalized that he could choose a man from that Sex Tube they had. I need a sex tube, Chani. :0)

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

You need a sex tube?

Oh I have one, it's about 12 cm, pink and vibrating...;- )

[poshcat.livejournal.com]

Heh, now that I know what you look like, I can imagine it more fully.

:0P

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't mind a longer and thicker tube with a Spike at the end.

Imagine, imagine...and write that bloody fanfic!