Monthly Archives: April 2006

Movie Review: The Island

Silly mindless fun.

Some critics saw the trailer, and the first half of the film and thought that the film was trying to be profound. They assumed it was going to be a deep film that explored the issues of mortality, slavery, technology etc.

It was not.

In some sense that was a shame. There were a lot of potential in the plot and the initial setup.

But that would miss the point. Because I had 2:30 hours worth of fun. And Scarlett Johnson was very hot.

spoilers

To summarize: the film opens in this futuristic world at some indeterminate point in the future. The individuals in this future world have wierd names like Lincoln Six Echo and look like the characters from THX-1138.

normal_lobbycard01.jpg

The people are trapped in a sealed environment because the outside world is contaminated due to an environmental disaster except for one place called The Island. Every so often people win a lottery that lets them leave the sealed environment and go to the Island.

Very quickly we figure out that something is wrong. The Earth’s environment is not poisoned. There are people dressed in black watching the whole world behind the scenes using secret cameras making snide remarks.

Soon we discover that the people in this world are clones produced from some bio-material whose tissue is being harvested to extend the lives of their master copies. The Island doesn’t exist. The winners of the lottery are being harvested.

At that point the film switches gear and becomes a high tech chase through the world as two clones escape. The high speed chase borrows heavily from the best films like the Matrix and Face-Off.

The film ends with a scene straight out of Logan’s Run where all of the clones stand outside of their strange prison and realize that there is a big world that they can now inhabit.

Isaac Hayes discovers exploitation is wrong.

704_img_04.jpg

Isaac Hayes recently discovered that exploiting minority group idiosyncracies for cheap laughs was wrong and has resigned from the cast of South Park.

Isaac Hayes did not find Shaft the original blacksploitation film problematic for it’s depiction of black inner city life.

Isaac Hayes did not find the character of Chef problematic. A character who embodied ever racist stereotype: the black man as servant, the black man as a predatory sexual threat to white women, the black man known by his function as a servant to the white man not his person.

Isaac Hayes did not find the viscious attack on the Mormon faith problematic in the South Park episode All About the Mormons.

Isaac Hayes did not find the ongoing mockery of Christ, buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Homosexuality, PETA etc problematic.

No, Isaac Hayes found the critique of the Church of Scientology as being inappropriate.

sigh.

How odd that a cult devoted to extracting wealth from fools would have finally taught Mr. Hayes that although South Park is very, very funny it does push the line of appropriateness.