This has certainly been my most difficult review to write for Geek Speak Magazine. Not because The Island is particularly awful, but rather because it is especially ‘meh’ (said with a shrug of the shoulders). Unlike other Michael Bay stunners, The Island is perfectly competently directed and acted without ever rising to excellent or sinking to awful. I could whip out tens of thousands of words on how stupid Transformers 2 is, but how much is there really to say about a movie that raises no feelings whatsoever? Much can be said about either beauty or ugliness, but the plain Janes of the world (and despite Scarlett, this is definitely a plain Jane of a movie) are largely just forgettable.

But I did promise my Editor a review of the movie so let’s press on.

The Island is a chase movie. Starting out in a secret corporate compound, our two beautiful stars bust out and run across the country, only to later run back. I recently watched it with said illustrious Editor of this here magazine, along with my wife, and for at least the first half an hour we needed Rachel to explain everything that was going on because nothing was quite compelling enough to stop us generally talking about our days or the latest cool thing our son did. But the long and the short of it (Note: Major Spoiler Alert -- if you want to keep open the possibility of being powerfully unsurprised while watching this film for yourself, stop reading now) is this: rich people pay a company to clone them and then keep the clones so if anything happens to the real people (called ‘sponsors’) the clone can provide body parts, etc. Clones are kept inside, told that outside is a dead world with everyone having been killed by ‘the contagion’. When their real person dies, clones are told they have ‘won the lottery’ and get to go to ‘the island’.

As with most clone movies, the driving idea behind The Island is that clones are real people too. Although some changes are made to their brains so that they have no sex drive, the clones are identical to their sponsors in every other way. So when we see them being killed, one after having her sponsor’s baby, the other whose football player sponsor needs a new liver, we are supposed to be horrified. "How can they just kill people like that?" we are supposed to ask.

I wondered if maybe it was time to get another cup of tea.

But back to the chasing. Having discovered the whole killing the inmates thing, the intrepid Lincoln Six Echo (Ewan McGregor), initially oblivious to the super-hotness of his friend Jordan Two Delta (Scarlett Johanssen), escapes with her to the real world. Jordan has just been told she’s going to the island, and we find out that her sponsor has just been in a car accident and needs pretty much all of Jordan’s organs.

From there they are chased cross country by the initially ruthless and then strangely moralistic French-ish mercenary Laurent (Djimon Hounsou) while they try and find Lincoln’s sponsor and expose the truth. The truth, of course, being that the clones are really just like us after all and it would be really nice if we wouldn’t keep them locked up underground waiting for the day that we need their bits and pieces (the public has been told that the clones remain unconscious). They get some help along the way from Steve Buscemi and get double-crossed by Lincoln’s sponsor (unsurprisingly also played by Ewan McGregor -- but without the clone’s American accent). But their greatest assistance comes from the same guy who has chased them all over the States and who says at the beginning that he always keeps confidences and does what he’s hired to do. Laurent decides on the basis of himself being treated as non-human when a child in Africa, that the corporation’s treatment of the clones is no good, and decides to kill a few people to help all the clones escape. I’m wondering if he puts that on his new business cards: "Typically great at doing what I’m paid for, but if you’re really nasty I might turn on you and kill some of your henchman. Call me." And if this cold-blooded killer’s past is so important to him, how exactly did he think he was treating all the other people he chased down and killed? Nothing says "not getting treated like a first-class citizen" like getting shot up.

So I guess the ending is a little stupid. But otherwise there really isn’t too much to get excited about. Even when our two heroes discover sexy-times, the low lit soft porn scene with all offending bits dutifully blocked by arms or artfully arranged bed sheets fails to excite. That’s right -- even an almost half-naked Scarlett Johansson can’t make this movie good or bad. Of course, if you’re a guy who wrote any one of the many books or movies The Island shamelessly rips off, you might feel more strongly about it. [For example, the makers of the 1979 movie Parts: The Clonus Horror successfully sued, and were awarded an unspecified settlement amount. - Ed]

But otherwise, next time you’re in a coma, watch The Island. It won’t wake you up.

   -- Rachel Hyland