Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Religious Music & Entertainment
Review: The Island (dir. Michael Bay, 2005)

Review: The Island (dir. Michael Bay, 2005)

Last updated on: May 10, 2014 at 6:04 pm by Peter T. Chattaway

Review: The Island (dir. Michael Bay, 2005) 2014-05-10T18:04:37-07:00 Peter T. Chattaway

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The Island is a movie about clones, and so it comes as no surprise that the movie is, itself, something of a clone. But it is also something of a chimera; that is, it seems like the sort of movie you would get if you took pieces of two very different movies and squished them together, and the result is a monstrosity.

On the one hand, we have a dystopian science-fiction movie about people who live in an artificial environment under a totalitarian regime, oblivious to the fact that they are actually clones who have been manufactured as spare parts, or “insurance policies,” for the rich and famous of the world. The all-white production design and the theme of escape, as two clones try to break out of their world, brings George Lucas’s THX 1138 to mind; but the emphasis on genetic engineering and sterile perfection recalls Andrew Niccol’s Gattaca, and the way the creators of this society use comfort and fear to discourage curiosity about the outside world — all of the inhabitants believe they are survivors of a global catastrophe — recalls Peter Weir’s The Truman Show (also written by Niccol).

On the other hand, we have a standard-issue Michael Bay movie. Bay is the director of such crass, over-edited action movies as Armageddon, The Rock and Pearl Harbor, and in The Island — the first film he has made without producer Jerry Bruckheimer — he steals more than one idea from his last film, the stupendously immoral Bad Boys II. In that movie, one chase scene featured Will Smith and Martin Lawrence dodging vehicles thrown off the back of a car carrier. This time, our heroes stow away on a similar truck and begin dumping heavy, massive train wheels off the back. Once again, the camera pivots around a door as heroes and villains approach it from opposite sides. And, once again, a scene gets its cheap punch line from some anonymous black person who barks something about Jesus.

The science-fiction part of the movie seems to be trying to say something significant about our society and its mad rush into technologies that we are not yet prepared to deal with ethically, especially where the creation of human life is concerned. (Does all this cloning have any bearing on the debate over embryonic stem-cell research? Discuss.) But the action-movie part of the film couldn’t care less about the deeper issues raised by the script. When two clones escape from the island and a corporate executive (Sean Bean) tells a team of ex-military mercenaries (led by Djimon Hounsou) to “contain” the situation, it’s just another excuse to pile on the car chases, the exploding airborne public-transit vehicles, and the extensive property damage. And if the film had any credibility before the scene in which two people survive a fall from near the top of a skyscraper, it stops right there.

At the heart of all this are a handful of actors who have proved their worth in numerous other films, and who can therefore be forgiven for hopping aboard this roller-coaster. Ewan McGregor plays Lincoln Six-Echo, a clone with a slightly rebellious streak who is haunted by nightmares and a long list of unanswered questions; note how his first name alludes to the president who oversaw the emancipation of the slaves. Scarlett Johansson plays Jordan Two-Delta, the cute girl who slips him bacon strips when the food servers aren’t looking — apparently he isn’t supposed to eat them — and who would probably be his girlfriend if the security guards didn’t enforce the “proximity” rules. (The enforcement of this rule seems pretty selective, though, since the clones’ nightclub seems crowded enough.)

Lincoln’s curiosity about the outside world is fed by McCord (Steve Buscemi, stealing all his scenes as usual), a worker at the facility who slips him some contraband items and introduces him to concepts that have been kept out of his education, such as God. (“When you want something real bad and you close your eyes and ask for it, God’s the guy who ignores you,” says McCord.) One day, while visiting McCord’s office, Lincoln finds a moth that has infiltrated the facility through its ventilation system. The clones have been told that all moths were killed in a “contamination” that ravaged the world, but this sign of life from the outside convinces Lincoln to snoop around. And what he sees ain’t good.

The clones have been told that there is just one remaining natural “pathogen-free zone” in the world, a place that is called “the island”; and every now and then, a clone wins a “lottery” that supposedly sends him or her to this paradise. What the clones don’t know — and what Lincoln discovers, to his horror — is that “the island” is just a myth, and that the clones who win the “lottery” are actually taken to another part of the facility where they are, so to speak, “processed” like the mere “products” their creators believe them to be. Terrified, Lincoln and Jordan escape to the outside world, where they hope to expose what’s going on with McCord’s reluctant, minimal help.

While some Christians might cheer the film’s demonization of scientists and others who play God and treat human life as just another form of animal or machine, etc., etc., the story also has Gnostic overtones that could be interpreted as critical of religion. Just as The Truman Show portrayed a God-like figure who tried to trap a soul within his artificial world by playing on his fears, so too The Island shows how the clones are fed false myths about the evil world outside and the imaginary paradise waiting for them. And just as films like Pleasantville have portrayed sexuality as a liberating force that allows people to break out of the perfect paradises created for them by God and men, The Island presents sexuality as the true fulfillment of the clones’ mythic desires, too. “The island is real,” says one clone to her partner after they experience the best sex two virgins have ever had. “It’s us.”

In fairness, the film’s mythic parallels become more complicated once the clones escape their world. One of the first creatures they encounter in the Arizona desert is a serpent — a rattlesnake, in fact — and the clones are simply too innocent to realize that it poses a danger to them. Similarly, sexual freedom has its limits; when Lincoln meets the man who had him cloned (also played by McGregor, who has a wonderful chemistry with himself), the original Lincoln says he has hepatitis, “a parting gift from God for all my philandering.” And the reason the clones exist in the first place, of course, is because the humans on the outside want to live forever, even if it means tampering with nature to do so.

Whether these elements are signs of thematic complexity or just confusion on Bay’s part is an interesting question. Certainly the film has other problems that make you want to scratch your head, like the brand-name sneakers worn by the clones (no environment is so pure or sterile that you can’t put a product placement in there!), or the way some of the clones — who, if I heard this correctly, are built from their sponsors’ DNA, with memories programmed separately — somehow inherit their sponsors’ memories, too.

And ultimately, whatever message the film might have had is ultimately drowned out by the violence — which, incidentally, is a little more difficult to follow here than in Bay’s other films, partly because the futuristic machines he destroys are not as familiar to the audience as the national monuments that were featured in some of his other movies. The film itself remains a patchwork of clichés — evil corporations, evil Frankenstein-like scientists, and so forth — which is the one kind of cloning that Hollywood does accept.

2 stars (out of 4)

–

Talk About It
Discussion starters

1. Do you think this movie has anything to say about current debates concerning genetic and biological engineering? If so, what? Does it favour one side over another?

2. Dr. Merrick (Sean Bean), the scientist in charge of the island, says the clones have no souls. Do you agree or disagree? Does it make any difference that the clones were not conceived or born the natural way?

3. Dr. Merrick compares the human body to a machine that “wears out.” How have the scientific developments of the past century or two encouraged us to look at ourselves this way? Are bodies just collections of “parts”? How do we understand our bodies in the light of God’s creation, and in the light of the Incarnation and Resurrection? (See 1 Cor. 15:35-49.)

4. How does the community in which the clones live resemble other communities in our world? What sorts of lies do we hear, if any, in the media (including movies)? In schools? In churches? How do these venues play on our fears and our desires?

5. What do you make of the film’s references to God? McCord says God doesn’t hear us when we pray, while the original Lincoln says, presumably insincerely, that his disease is a punishment for his sexual promiscuity. (Note also McCord’s line about being “the guy who tells the kids there’s no Santa Claus.”) Is there any sign in this film that God does more than ignore and punish us? What do you make of the film’s use of snakes, light, crumbling angelic sculptures, and other visual motifs that have high symbolic value?

The Family Corner
For parents to consider

The Island is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, some sexuality and language. The violence includes scenes of hooks being shot into people’s legs, a man’s hand being nailed to a door, armored trucks performing somersaults in crowded roads, and various other scenes of things and people being shot and blown up. In addition, we see the clones grown and killed at various stages of biological development. The script also contains jokes that could be construed to be at the expense of women, gays, and Christians.

— A version of this review was first published at Christianity Today Movies.

Previous Post

July 22, 2005

Newsbites: Apocalypto! Frisbee! Left Behind III!

Next Post

July 22, 2005 The Island -- the review is up!

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Anglican Planet Articles BC Christian News BC Report Bible Movies Bible Review Blog Books & Culture Campus Times CBC Radio Christianity Today ChristianWeek Essays Faith Today Festival Cinemas Guide Film Journals Georgia Straight Interviews MB Herald National Catholic Register Salvationist Today's Christian Two Chairs Ubyssey Uncategorized Vancouver Courier Vancouver Sun

Select a Month August 2025 April 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 May 2024 February 2024 December 2023 May 2023 March 2023 November 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 September 2019 July 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 April 2012 January 2012 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 November 2003 October 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 March 2002 January 2002 December 2001 November 2001 September 2001 August 2001 July 2001 June 2001 April 2001 March 2001 February 2001 December 2000 November 2000 October 2000 September 2000 August 2000 July 2000 June 2000 May 2000 April 2000 March 2000 January 2000 October 1999 August 1999 May 1999 April 1999 February 1999 January 1999 December 1998 November 1998 October 1998 August 1998 July 1998 June 1998 April 1998 March 1998 January 1998 November 1997 September 1997 July 1997 June 1997 April 1997 March 1997 February 1997 January 1997 December 1996 October 1996 September 1996 June 1996 March 1996 February 1996 January 1996 April 1995 November 1994 September 1994 September 1991

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What is the Christian teaching about truth-telling?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Say nothing Speak the truth Flatter often Lie if necessary