Attack Of The Clones

RATING: B-

Starring: Starring Ewan McGregor, Scarlett Johansson, Djimon Hounsou, Sean Bean, Michael Clarke Duncan and Steve Buscemi. Music by Steve Jablonsky, Costume Designer Deborah L. Scott, Edited by Paul Rubell, Christian Wagner, Production Designer Nigel Phelps, Director of Photography Mauro Fiore, Executive Producer Laurie MacDonald, Produced by Walter F. Parkes, Michael Bay, Ian Bryce, Story by Caspian Tredwell-Owen, Screenplay by Caspian Tredwell-Owen and Alex Kurtzman & Roberto Orci, Directed by Michael Bay.

Rated PG-13, Running Time 127 mins., 2.39 to 1 Anamorphic Scope Aspect Ratio.

I think the backlash that Michael Bay and his films have received is a bit undeserved. I've never been a member of his die-hard fan base and it wasn't until his third feature "Armageddon" that this guy's films began to work for me. I leave my high standards at home when it comes to his movies and they entertain me because I accept them for what they are: mindless entertainment. But Bay is more than just a popcorn movie director; the man does indeed have talent and is more than capable of taking the reigns of multi-million dollar productions. The problem is that his films are missing realistically developed characters placed within compelling stories. The characters especially don't seem like real people and have no dramatic arc making him the target of ridicule by filmmaker's like "Team America's" Trey Parker and Matt Stone. But is it entirely Bay, the director's fault, or was he nurtured improperly by popcorn movie/TV producer Jerry Bruckheimer? Bay's latest "The Island" is his first feature without Bruckheimer and though it isn't his career defining film, it does suggest that in order to make better movies Bay might be better off out from under his mentor’s thumb.

Ewan McGregor, the hardest working young Scot in showbiz, stars as Lincoln Six-Echo a wide-eyed innocent resident of one of the last sanctuaries on earth. Set in the not too distant future, most of mankind has been wiped out from a deadly pathogen and survivors like Lincoln have been brought to a habitat to live and work. The sanctuary is a virtual utopia, where many of the white jump-suited residents enjoy various jobs, recreation, schooling and medical care from doctors like the mysterious Dr. Merrick (Sean Bean) who heads the institute. Everyone seems content with their new lives including the beautiful Jordan Two-Delta (Scarlett Johansson), Lincoln’s closest friend and occasional sparring partner in a virtual reality game that looks like X-Box 1000. All of the residents eagerly await the weekly lottery drawing, hoping that one of them will be chosen to move out to “The Island”, the last uncontaminated refuge on earth that is rumored to be a paradise.

Lincoln on the other hand seems to be suffering from a series of nightmares. No, he doesn’t dream he’s a Jedi Knight, dueling with a whiny younger guy. His dreams are full of images he’s never seen and much to the chagrin of Merrick he begins questioning all around him. Why must he follow a strict diet? Why is he often reprimanded for coming in close proximity of women like Jordan? Why can’t he have friendships with institute workers like the secret one he shares with McCord (Steve Buscemi), a technician at the institute? When McCord tries to comforts him by stating Merrick has a God complex, Lincoln asks, “What is God?” “You know when you want something real bad and you close your eyes and wish for it?” he replies, “God is the guy that ignores you!” But Lincoln can’t ignore the fact that there’s just something not right at the institute and when he discovers an insect from the outside world he wonders how it could have survived if the earth is contaminated? His curiosity leads him to the horrific discovery that those who were chosen in the lottery have not moved on to “The Island” after all, they’re dead. The winners have been harvested for their organs and their remains disposed of. The institute isn’t the last sanctuary on earth after all and when Jordan wins a trip to “The Island”, a frantic Lincoln leads her to escape.

When they reach the outside world, Lincoln and Jordan find that the institute is part of an old military underground bunker deep in the desert. The outside world hasn’t been ravished by pathogens, but is a thriving mid 21st century society. Making their way to McCord, their only friend on the outside, Lincoln and Jordan learn that they’re clones of other people in the real world. Wealthy citizens of society pay Merrick and his scientists millions of dollars to clone them so that one day their organs or tissue may be used for spare parts. It’s a profitable business and even though it’s been outlawed it’s still practiced. “Just because people eat the burger doesn’t mean they want to meet the cow,” McCord tells Lincoln when he decides to confront his counterpart in L.A. But Merrick isn’t about to let multi-million dollar products like Lincoln and Jordan slip through his fingers. He’s hired Laurent (Djimon Hounsou), head of Black Hawk security, who comes “highly recommended by the Justice Department.” Laurent and his team of mercenaries (who look like “American Chopper” rejects) are ex Delta soldiers and will use military force in order to bring Lincoln and Jordan back alive. With orders to kill them if necessary, Laurent and his team get closer to Jordan and Lincoln who is desperate to come face to face with the man he was cloned from.

“The Island” has everything you can expect from a Michael Bay film: excellent production design, plenty of violence with one-liners and a good dose of action set pieces. What’s surprising is that there’s a decent story in the middle of all this that holds up quite well. The premise is a little too similar to the Robert Fiveson’s 1979 feature “Parts: The Clonus Horror” starring Tim Donnelly as a young man in a situation similar to McGregor’s who discovers a beer can. The film also starred Peter Graves and although it had an interesting concept it ended up being ridiculed on TV’s “Mystery Science Theater 3000.” The bottom line is that you’re coming to see a summer action flick, but I appreciate the fact that Caspian Tredwell-Owen has attempted to give the sci-fi details of his story some actual weight. The clones are developed from a mysterious type of tissue that serves as a template and can grow into adult subjects when the DNA of the donor is introduced. They are grown in sac-like compartments similar to the pods from “The Matrix” and resemble a silicone breast implant.

Once they are fully developed, they have memories artificially imprinted in their consciousness with the desire to go to “The Island.” Clones like Lincoln and Jordan think that they had to learn how to function as humans again due to a side effect from exposure to the contamination that wiped out mankind. They don’t realize they’re physically no more than four years old and have been schooled to the level of a fifteen year old. What’s also interesting is that Lincoln is somewhat different from the rest. The memories he’s recalling could only be those of the individual he’s been cloned from, meaning that perhaps memory has somehow been passed through his DNA. A lot of it is science fiction nonsense, but it may also be science eventuality, meaning that this type of technology may be on the horizon and is always fun to speculate about. Developments in nanotechnology, microscopic machines, like the tiny bugs that Merrick deposits in Lincoln’s eye to scan his cerebral cortex, are actually just around the corner. But you don’t want to hear about that. You want to know about the action and that little nymph Scarlett Johansson.

Action tends to get boring if it doesn’t involve interesting characters played by talented actors and McGregor and Johansson manage to deliver the goods. Their characters are highly intelligent but they also behave with the curiosity of fifteen year olds. Watching the always hilarious Steve Buscemi try to explain the workings of the real world to them is a treat: “Why do I gotta be the guy that tells the kids there’s no Santa Claus?” he say when he reveals their origins or “Never give a woman your credit card,” he suggests when McGregor hands his off to Johansson. McGregor always manages to have some degree of likeability in just about every role he plays and the naive Lincoln Six-Echo is no exception.

Young Johansson always brings a level of maturity to her work and at the same time there’s a bit of innocence to her character, which is willing to follow Lincoln just about anywhere even though he doesn’t know where they’re headed. Jordan knows Lincoln almost better than he knows himself and can even tell when he lies to her. She’s almost unaware of her own beauty which is luminous and it’s no wonder that Lincoln dreams of her as a Goddess. I got a real chuckle out of a scene where a bartender asks Johansson if she wants it straight up and her response is looking at the ceiling as well as another moment where Buscemi has to rescue her from a drunken patron. It was also very witty that she discovers her counterpart is a fashion model in the exact same black and white Calvin Klein campaign that Johansson appeared in last year.

Lincoln and Jordan are basically two innocent kids who like each other but haven’t figured out a way to express it. Maybe it’s because they’ve been educated to a 10th grade level and according to Merrick the concept of sex is foreign to them. That doesn’t sit well with Lincoln’s counterpart Tom Lincoln, obnoxiously played by McGregor who can’t believe he hasn’t engaged Jordan in extra-curricular activities and is eager to flirt with her. Tom is a rich Scottish designer whose promiscuity has left him with Hepatitis and he’s in need of Lincoln’s healthy liver. McGregor is never afraid to risk embarrassment in his films and quite humorously manages to make fun of himself as both the Scottish and American characters he plays engage in conversation.

Lincoln: “Why do we sound different?”
Tom: “I’m from Scotland”
Lincoln: “Dime frome Scotlann?
Tom: “Cut that out.”
Lincoln: “Gut dat owwt?

Sean Bean, who has been everything from a Bond villain to a misguided member of the fellowship in “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, always manages to hit the right notes when it comes to being a bad guy. He always gives off a vibe that he believes he’s doing the right thing even when his actions are horrible, making him more than just a cardboard villain. It’s refreshing to see an actor as underrated as Djimon Hounsou to play the heavy in such a big movie. There’s actually nothing villainous about his character at all, although he and his men manage to cause much innocent death and destruction while hunting down McGregor and Johansson. I just wish Bay had photographed him as well as he did his two leads that appear almost beautiful. Hounsou’s dark complexion makes him almost a silhouette in certain scenes, but it also gives him a bit of mystery, almost as if this hired gun isn’t sure about what side he should be on. If you’re wondering about Michael Clarke Duncan, he does make a cameo in the film that’s rather small. I enjoyed the fact that his character Starkweather is a bit of a bookworm whose excitement about winning a trip to “The Island” turns to horror when he wakes up on an operating table in a heart transplant procedure for his NFL celebrity counterpart.

“The Island” does begin as an engaging mystery but it’s only a matter of time before Bay falls back on his action composing talents and turns the movie into a chase picture. There’s the usual slow motion, elaborate camera angles and quite a bit of excessive violence for a PG-13 picture, including a mini gun that graphically harpoons escapees like Duncan. Bay also can’t seem to stop panning the camera around a character every time they do something as simple as step out of a car and the colors within Mauro Fiore’s cinematography are cold steel for the habitat interiors and humid looking greens and reds for the outdoors. The most entertaining of the action sequences is an elaborately choreographed scene involving Hounsou and his team chasing McGregor and Johansson through the streets of a futuristic L.A.

What begins as a shoot-out similar to Michael Mann’s opening armored car robbery in “Heat” (Now they’ve got their own armored car and hockey masks.),evolves into a chase with a flying motorcycle equipped with a machine gunner’s perch. As McGregor and Johansson drop training wheels from the back of the biggest looking futuristic Mack truck you’ve ever seen, the sequence mirrors that of the freeway chase in “Bad Boys 2”, but is a lot more entertaining. Of course it almost becomes ridiculous when McGregor commandeers one of those bikes and he and Johansson end up hanging off the side of a skyscraper, but the sequence is so imaginative and visceral that you don’t even care.

Michael Bay doesn’t break new ground with this one and what starts out as a promising picture eventually gets a tad generic. I didn’t mind that so much because of the performances by the four leads and the fact that other than Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage, they are the most talented actors he’s ever worked with. Their talents actually manage to elevate the material and it’s a sigh of relief that the characters don’t become symbols of good, which is what tends to happens in Bruckheimer’s productions. I don’t see The “South Park” guys parodying him any time soon. He’s copied a bit from Ridley Scott’s visual style, some futuristic concepts from Spielberg’s “Minority Report” and George Lucas’ “THX-1138”, but that’s okay. I think this film is a step in the right direction if Bay wishes to grow as a filmmaker and entertain audiences with more than just visual thrills. Now if only I had an idea of what he has in mind for my beloved “Transformers.”