Went and saw The Island llast night and I must say that it was a very entertaining movie. It actually seemed like two movies, the first have a sort of social -psychological sci-fi movie and the second half a somewhat standard, albeit very entertaining action flick. I am not really a big fan of Michael Bay, but I think he did a pretty good job of making a very fun, although it is flawed in some ways, movie.
And it has Scarlet Johanssen, almost worth the price of admission to watch her for two hours.
I’ll admit, the main reason I went to see it was to see pretty people frollock around for a few hours. The movie itself was okay, but cliched as hell. Especially the part when
The gun is being waved back and forth between the Lincoln 6 Echo and Tom Lincoln. I had to laugh at this part, because only last week I was watching the Family guy episode where they mention Peter’s evil twin, cut to Lois waving a gun between two identical Peters in the same fashion.
When I first saw the trailer for The Island I thought “wasn’t that an MST3k episode…?” The one where there’s this compound out in the desert and these people have a remedial education but they try to escape into the “real world”, but armed not with a proper education and upbringing but instead a 3rd grade reading level?
Say what you will about Bay and is films–I personally wouldn’t watch one after being subjected to thirty minutes of Bad Boys II and about an hour of The Rock–but despite massive f/x and marketing budgets his films make money like they are printing it in the projection booth. It seems that he’s often characterized as an idiot for making “dumb” movies, but he seems to have a firm grasp on what people will pay to go see; if only Ron Howard were as consistantly talented a hack.
I think I’ll skip this one, unless I catch it on matinee on a slow, smoggy Sunday afternoon, and then only for the presence of Scarlett Johanssen, but I’m not goint to lambaste anyone who enjoyed it.
Personally, the only film I’m really gnashing at the bit for is the yet-to-be-announced Charlie Kaufman-Spike Jonze “horror” film that is supposed to be released sometime this year, and maybe Flora Plum and The Brothers Grimm. I think it’s been a real shiite year for films so far.
Just got back from a matinee showing (hey, it was raining and I was bored).
Not only have they ripped off the plot of CH, they’ve also stolen little bits and pieces of at least 5 or 6 other SF movies (At least. I may have missed another half-dozen, or so). Movies from which they’ve pilfered ideas or even whole scenes include: THX-1138, 12 Monkeys, Blade Runner, Logan’s Run, Coma and, believe it or not, Return of the Jedi. Basically, there wasn’t an original idea in its addled little head although it certainly seemed to be trying to make some sort of statement. Whatever that might have been, however, was lost amongst the reactionary misconceptions about therapeutic cloning and confused (albeit thrilling) chase sequences.
Eh, it’s a summer action movie, not a heavy drama.
It was pretty lame, but interesting enough to see once. I was getting rather bored with the amount of chase scenes. There was a shit-ton of money spent on exploding cars and such but not a lot of effort put into dialog.
I liked it better than Charlie and the Chocolate Factory…
::ducks and covers::
Too much bang-bang-shoot-'em-up/miraculous escapes, and the indirect moralizing is irritating: WE MUST HAVE SCIENTIFIC ETHICS OR WE’LL CREATE HUMAN BEINGS TO HARVEST THEIR ORGANS! (I mean, I certainly do advocate serious consideration to ethical matters in the application of scientific knowledge…but not while I’m trying to eat four-dollar popcorn!)
Ewan MacGregor is quite good–he should be in a better film than this one, really–and Scarlett darling is surprisingly decent.
It’s not Great Art or anything, but it’s perfectly okay if you want to escape from the heat and watch something reasonably entertaining in a cool, dark place.
And Mr. Blue Sky, I’ve been reading your link for the past ten minutes, and it’s totally cracking me up.
A deeply, deeply stupid movie. We saw it for free and wanted our money back. It started out well enough, but…
yeah, and then he had to have 2 of them!
Thank you! I kept thinking that guy was familiar, but couldn’t place him. I thought, I have to look him up on IMDB but forgot.
We saw Fantastic Four the same night and thought that was the better movie, and it was deeply dumb too.
The Island could have been so good if it had been directed by someone with talent. I can’t help but think that Ewan and Scarlett signed up on the basis of a completely different script. I hope they and Sean Bean and Hounsou got paid lots of money upfront, and it did give lots of stunt people and visual effects people jobs.
It would have had a little bit more suspense at the beginning if the central “secret” hadn’t been given away in all the trailers and ads and interviews. Though, the 2nd half of the movie still would have been stupid with the 2 (TWO!!) car chases and the big fan blowing up for no apparent reason.
HaHAAA! It’s a bomb! I don’t usually take this much pleasure in someone else’s misfortune but whatever stops Michael Bay making movies is good news for me!
Althoug, as I said in the OP, I enjoyed the movie for what it was, cotton candy for the brain, the product placements were incredibly annoying and obvious…Nokia, Aquafina, Mack Truck, Puma, are ones I can still remember.
I saw it last night, and I really enjoyed it. Suspension of reality had to be really high (for example, the falling off the building part). I thought Ewan did an excellent job - to me, he really captured the innocence and discombobulation of the character. Scarlett did pretty good herself.
I love this type of movie and book though, so I’m prejudiced.
