Thursday, June 23, 2011

Movie Review - The Island


Another one of the movies that i saw recently was the 2005 sience-fiction movie - the Island. This Warner brothers production was something that was suggested to me by a friend. And i must say, the movie wasn't disappointing.

The Plot:

The story starts in the year 2019. Lincoln Six Echo, played by Evan McGregor is one of the few people who live in an artificial human colony. He lives along with thousands of other humans. Everyday, he has the same routine. He wakes up in the morning, gets ready, has his breakfast, goes to work, has lunch, gym and other sessions. He usually gets nightmares about a boat and some other things and then drowning. He is bored about his predictable life, and has multiple questions about various things inside the colnony.

Jordan Two Delta, played by Scarlett Johanson is his best friend. She's the one who helps him all the food he desires, but cannot procure due to restrictions. He's quite close to Jordan.

The human colony was made after an enormous disease outbreak had occured,and after that this artificial colony was built. Everyone in the colony gets an opportuity to go to the island - a permanent vacation experience out of the colony in the natural environment. Because of contamination,only one island is left on the earth useful for safe habitat for human beings. Residents in this colony act slightly like children,whereas the staff acts normally.

Lincoln is of a curious investigative nature. He keeps on finding tricks to explore various aspects of the colony. He becomes friends with an employee McCord who works with the electronics and electrical department at level 6 of the ecosystem.

One day, Lincoln finds a bug in one of the contaminated zones of the campus. He tells about this to Jordan. Jordan later wins the lottery trip to the island. On getting to know this, Lincoln does some exploration before Jordan goes out to the island. He eventually finds that there is life on Earth,their manmade enviromnent is below the Earth's surface, and the residents of the colony are being told bag full of lies by their chief doctor Merrick. They are the clones of people actually existing on the Earth. People who've been told that they've won the lottery trip to the island are actually killed for their organs or body parts for those who need a transplant,or even for babies for the infertile.

He comes back to his underground world, and escapes to the surface with Jordan. He takes shelter in a ruin for sometime. When he wakes up, that he's on a national highway route. On following that route, he looks for a motel whose wherebouts he had read at a box in McCord's office. He reaches the motel ,and there he finds McCord. McCord takes them to his place, and explains them the whole story. He then gives them the addresses to their sponsors - the poeple who paid money to get them constructed. These are the people who utilise the organs and body parts. These sponsors do not know how these organs are built, or about the killing of clones for the organ. McCord boards them on the train to California, but gets killed by Merrick's newly hired security personnel. Lincoln and Jordan are attacked too, but somehow manage to escape.

Tom Lincoln and Sarah Jordan are the sponsors of Lincoln and Jordan respectively. They must go to these sponsors and tell the reality. First they try to find Sarah, only to find out that she's out of the state, and in the hospital at the moment. Lincoln gets arrested there on charges of arrest of Merrick, where he checks out the address of Tom Lincoln. But somehow escapes when the police car, in which he's boarded gets ripped in an accident. He escapes along with Jordan to Tom Lincoln's place. There they tell him the whole story.

There, Lincoln comes to know that Tom Lincoln is a sex addict, and he would need a liver transplant. Lincoln initially is a very kind person to them, but secretly he's against them. Tom calls up Merrick's men, and tries to get the clone Lincoln killed by deceit. Jordan,who already didn't trust Tom,had warned clone Lincoln, and being vigilant on her advice, clone Lincoln escapes unharmed, but in the act, the real Lincoln gets killed by Merrick's men after they confused the clone Lincoln with the real Lincoln. Lincoln returns to Tom's house, where he had left Jordan. There, they spend time together and become close.

Merrick finds that there was a flaw in four out of six generations of clones, and decides to kill all of them. Meanwhile, Lincoln and Jordan decide to save the rest of their mates. They go back to the ecosystem. Lincoln goes there acting like the real Lincoln, whereas Jordan intentionally gets herself caught. On reaching back to the ecosystem, they get themselves free, and try to sabotage the system, so that the other clones could get freed. Lincoln gets caught up with Merrick, and in the resulting struggle, kills Merrick. When Jordan reaches, Merrick's men were about to kill the rest of the clones of Lincoln's generation. She saves them and then sabotages the system with the help of the new security guy Merrick had appointed. Looking at the mass killing Merrick was commiting, this guy got changed and started supported the clones. As the main outlet fan for the system got destroyed, a void got created. Through this void, the clones escape and see the real world. The End.

Final Take:
The movie is good considering that the science fiction used is not too imaginary, and yet feasible. Director Michael Bay has depicted great direction skills of his. The movie is new, yet predictable. But you cannot watch it more than twice. Watching the ovie thrice would be too much.

Scarlett Johanson and Evan McGreggor have done justice to their roles. The music work is functional enough.

Considering all the aspects, i'd give this movie 3.5 out of 5.

No comments: