“The Island” (DreamWorks)
“The Island” is a Michael Bay film and he is the guy who gave us “Pearl Harbor,” Armageddon,” and “Bad Boys I and II.” He is famous for using a lot of explosives in his movies and having ample chase sequences and both are in abundant supply in this film. Still the movie seems slowly paced and at times seems to come to a dead stop. Not a good sign for an action adventure.
The film concerns a group of people who are living in a contained facility. They have been told that the world has become contaminated because of a great war or something like that. They are not given the freedom to leave the facility because the outside world has become a wasteland.
The one thing they live for is the chance to go to “the island.” This is a paradise that has not been contaminated and a lottery is held to determine who gets to go. In actuality when a person wins the lottery he/she is taken away and killed and their organs are harvested for use by sick people on the outside.
Lincoln Six Echo (Ewan McGregor) stumbles on the truth and he and his friend Jordan Two Delta (Scarlett Johansson) escape the facility. They are hunted by Albert Laurent (Djimon Honsou) who works for the owners of the facility.
Their escape and pursuit gives the movie its action sequences but still it drags. There are holes in the plot big enough to drive humvees through, and the two leads have zero chemistry. The movie looks good but it is as hollow as any movie I have seen lately.
McGregor is not your typical action figure. He may have played Obi Wan Kenobi in the “Star Wars” trilogy, but he is till a lightweight in the muscle department. Opposite him Johansson seems better suited to beat up the bad guys than he.
This movie is rated PG-13 for profanity and violence.
There are some good individual action sequences but overall the pace, the acting and the cheesy dialogue of the film drag it down. “The Island” ends up being a place you don’t want to visit.
I scored “The Island” a beached 5 out of 10.
