The Island (2005 film)
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| The Island | |
|---|---|
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| Directed by | Michael Bay |
| Produced by | Kenny Bates Michael Bay |
| Written by | Caspian Tredwell-Owen Alex Kurtzman Roberto Orci |
| Starring | Ewan McGregor Scarlett Johansson Sean Bean Djimon Hounsou Steve Buscemi |
| Music by | Steve Jablonsky |
| Cinematography | Mauro Fiore |
| Editing by | Paul Rubell Christian Wagner |
| Distributed by | - USA - DreamWorks - non-USA - Warner Bros. |
| Release date(s) | 2005-07-22 |
| Running time | 127 min. |
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $126 million |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
The Island is a 2005 science fiction film directed by Michael Bay and starring Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson. The film, which cost $126 million to produce, bombed at the domestic box office, earning only about $36 million. Michael Bay's last four films had each grossed over $100 million domestically, so The Island's performance was comparatively below average. However, The Island went on to gross over $160 million worldwide.
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[edit] Plot
In 2019, when most of the outside world has been contaminated, a community of people, apparently rescued from the toxic environment, live by utopian standards in an isolated colony. The rules of living are selected for them; clothing, meals, leisure, and jobs are all structured and controlled. Everyone in the community anticipates a special event, the lottery, in which one person wins a chance to move to a paradise, the only uncontaminated area left on Earth, known as "The Island."
[edit] The Discovery
Lincoln Six Echo (Ewan McGregor) is one of the colonists living in the utopia, but he experiences erratic dreams of a different lifestyle. Lincoln visits the colony's physician, Dr. Merrick (Sean Bean), in the Tranquility Center to talk about the dreams he has been having here. Dr. Merrick also does a synaptic scan. After the visit, Lincoln goes to his job working with the colony's subsistent technology, but he fakes a computer failure to visit his friend James McCord (Steve Buscemi), who works in one of the backrooms of the facility. While visiting, Lincoln sees and captures a flying insect with McCord's matchbox, wondering where it came from if the outside world was contaminated. Lincoln shares his find with his friend Jordan Two Delta (Scarlett Johansson) as well as his skepticism about the so-called contaminated outside world.
Jordan finds out that she has won the lottery to go to The Island. That night, Lincoln has another nightmare. He decides to get up and investigate where the flying insect came from. In the backroom, Lincoln climbs a ladder and finds a hidden medical floor. On the floor, he sees two so-called lottery winners; Lima One Alpha who gives birth to a baby and is murdered afterward, and another, Starkweather Two Delta (Michael Clarke Duncan), who fights against those operating on him to harvest his organs. Lincoln, realizing that there is no Island and that Jordan would suffer the same fate, races back home to retrieve her and escape from the colony with her.
[edit] The Escape
Merrick, who looked over the security tapes from Starkweather's struggle, recognizes Lincoln's presence on the medical floor and orders his capture. Lincoln and Jordan escape to the outside world, which turns out not to be contaminated, and they find themselves in the desert near Yuma, Arizona. Lincoln locates McCord, who turns out not to be one of the colonists, in a bar using McCord's matchbox. McCord, shocked at the colonists' presences, gives in and explains that the colonists were clones, whose purpose was to provide medical need for their sponsors, should anything happen to them. McCord gives them clothes, money, and a credit card to help them find their sponsors, with Lincoln's sponsor being in Los Angeles and Jordan's sponsor being in New York.
A mercenary strike team led by Albert Laurent (Djimon Hounsou) is deployed by Dr. Merrick to find the fugitives. Lincoln and Jordan evade the mercenaries, though McCord is killed in the crossfire. The two colonists escape to Los Angeles, where they run into the mercenaries again in the search for their sponsors. Escaping once more, Lincoln and Jordan find Lincoln's sponsor, a Scottish playboy racer, Tom Lincoln. Tom, having been misled to believe that his clone was kept in a persistent vegetative state by Dr. Merrick, agrees to help the two plead their case before the media. However, he pulls an about face and instead calls the institute, informing the people that his clone was at his home. Lincoln goes with his sponsor to a television station to expose the cloning company, but his sponsor instead leads him to Laurent and his fellow mercenaries. Lincoln, taking advantage of his similarity to his sponsor, confuses the mercenaries and is able to escape, getting his sponsor killed in the process.
[edit] The Rescue
Lincoln returns to Jordan, waiting at the sponsor's home, and both agree to rescue the rest of the cloned community from the facility. They devise a plan where Lincoln enters the facility as his sponsor, and Jordan uses McCord's tracked credit card to be captured by the mercenaries. When Jordan returns to the facility, she breaks free from the mercenaries and escapes.
Laurent runs into Jordan, and due to his history of experiencing murders during his life in Africa, empathizes with the clone's situation, as Dr. Merrick had decided to wipe out all third-generation clones that had proven to be more curious than desired. Laurent aids Jordan in rescuing a group of clones who are about to be incinerated as part of Merrick's plan.
Meanwhile, Lincoln destroys the holographic projectors that gave the colonists the illusion of a contaminated outside world, and Dr. Merrick and he fight each other as a result. In the struggle, Merrick is killed. The facility begins to collapse, but not before Lincoln, Jordan, Laurent, and all the clones escape.
[edit] Cast
| Actor/Actress | Role |
|---|---|
| Ewan McGregor | Lincoln Six Echo/Tom Lincoln |
| Scarlett Johansson | Jordan Two Delta/Sarah Jordan |
| Djimon Hounsou | Albert Laurent |
| Sean Bean | Merrick |
| Steve Buscemi | McCord |
| Michael Clarke Duncan | Starkweather Two Delta |
| Ethan Phillips | Jones Three Echo |
| Brian Stepanek | Gandu Three Echo |
| Noa Tishby | Community Announcer |
| Siobhan Flynn | Lima One Alpha |
[edit] Controversy
Due to some points of similarity, some have accused the filmmakers of remaking the 1979 film Parts: The Clonus Horror without crediting the original. [1]. The science fiction novels Brave New World, The Giver, House of the Scorpion, Logan's Run, Never Let Me Go and Anthem also have been compared to the concept for the movie.
Michael Marshall Smith's 1996 novel Spares, in which the hero liberates intelligent clones from a "spares farm" whose clients are told they are not conscious, was optioned by DreamWorks in the late 1990s but was never made. It remains unclear if the story inspired The Island, and Marshall Smith did not consider it worthwhile to pursue legal action over the similarities. Paramount (now sister studio to DreamWorks after its parent Viacom purchased DreamWorks in late 2005) was in talks to option the novel after DreamWorks' rights expired, but declined after The Island was released; Marshall Smith considers it unlikely a Spares film will ever be made.[2]
Reviewers have also objected to the prominent product placement within the film. MSN Search, Xbox, Puma, Reebok, NBC, NFL, Budweiser, Apple Computer, Aquafina, General Motors, DaimlerChrysler, Mack, Coca-Cola, Speedo, TAG Heuer, Amtrak, Ben & Jerry's and Nokia are some of the sponsors of the film. [3] However, in an Entertainment Weekly cover story, Bay explained the extensive product placement was the result of trying to keep production costs down. "[Bay] called on friends at major corporations — outfits like Budweiser, General Motors, and Microsoft — and offered overt product placement in exchange for cash. ' We made about $850,000 on that,' he says. 'And we needed that money to get this movie made.'" [4]
[edit] Symbolism and references to other films
Although the general idea of growing clones for spare parts in an isolated area and controlling their education is apparently taken from Parts: The Clonus Horror, there are major differences from Clonus, a low budget affair, that are notable. In Clonus, after the escaped clone finds his counterpart he is befriended, in The Island after the escaped clone finds his counterpart he is not befriended. Clonus is also decidedly low tech. It is possible to describe The Island not as a remake but a collection of cloned parts from many movies and some science fiction stories.
[edit] Plot similarities with Parts: The Clonus Horror
The following are plot points which accurately describe both movies.
- There is a secret community of clones who are being grown so that their organs can be harvested in order to extend the lives of people who are wealthy enough to afford it.
- When a clone needs to be harvested they get "randomly" chosen to go to the non-existant utopia that they have been told about. United States in Clonus, The Island in The Island.
- The main character is an inquisitive clone living in the community who finds clues about the outside world.
- The main character eventually escapes the community with his friend, the woman which the community staff try to keep him from getting too close to.
- The escaped clones want to tell the world about the community. They seek and meet the main character's original.
- The president (candidate for President in Clonus) is known to have a clone.
[edit] Trivia
- Caspian Tredwell-Owen was paid $1.5 million dollars for this spec script.
- There is a scene where Jordan-Two Delta discovers a large print advertisement and television commercial that feature her double, Sarah Jordan. The advertisements are actual ads for "Eternity Moment" that Scarlett Johansson did for Calvin Klein in 2004.
- In the film, Suzie (played by Shawnee Smith) is the wife of McCord (played by Steve Buscemi). This is the same woman that "Rockhound", from Armageddon (also Buscemi), was hitting on in a bar. Rockhound was looking at the woman's engagement ring, before announcing it was fake. Both films were directed by Michael Bay.
- Tom Lincoln's Cadillac in the film is the real-life Cadillac Cien concept car.
- Tom Lincoln's boat named the Renovatio in the film is the real-life 118 WallyPower luxury superyacht.
- Mostly all of the cars in the chase scene are American cars.
[edit] References
- Breznican, Anthony (March 18, 2005). "Car-wreck 'Island' keeps director smash-happy". USA Today, p. E1.
- Fierman, Daniel (July 22, 2005). "Attack of the Clones". Entertainment Weekly, issue #830. Retrieved from http://www.ew.com/ew/report/0,6115,1082270_1|105587||0_0_,00.html on June 19, 2006.
