Ben’s Rating: 
Review: Good movie. Touches on hot-button issues in our culture such as cloning and human rights. While this flick has mild sexual content, moderate violence and mild gore, I must point out that some scenes can be extremely emotional (especially to parents) because they involve children and babies. The Island is not a “must see” but does make for interesting and thought-provoking viewing. I can see this movie being viewed by a young adult Bible study group and used as a jumping off point for relevant discussion.
Basic Plot: (Includes spoilers) The Island is a movie that takes place in the future. Technology has advanced to the point where human cloning is a reality. One shady company, Merrick Biotech, offers any customer willing to pay the price the option to purchase a clone of themself as an “insurance policy.” This clone, the customer is assured, is kept in a constant vegetative state and is thus never “really alive.” Should the customer ever need a new liver, for example, Merrick Biotech kills their clone and harvests its liver which of course is genetically a perfect match for the customer.
The clones are not kept in a vegetative state, however. Merrick Biotech found that without emotions, friendship and the “human experience” the organs they harvested failed. Knowing that the world would not accept this dubious practice if the clones were not in a vegetative state, Merrick Biotech lies to its customers. Clones are never referred to as “people” they are “product.” They are never told what their purpose is; instead they are fed a series of lies regarding their existence and the world at large to keep them from trying to escape from the “storage facility.” Eventually two clones do escape, discover their true purpose and set out on trying to reveal to the world what Merrick Bioteck is really doing.
My Observations:The Island is like a modge-podge of The Matrix, GATTACA and Logan’s Run. The Island hits on concepts such as the nature of reality and what constitues human life. At times, especially near the end of the movie, it seemed to me that there were distinct parallels being drawn between killing clones and aborting babies. That’s where it got extremely emotional for me.
I was pleasantly surprised to see so many familiar faces in this movie. Ewan McGregor, Scarlett Johansson (all the male readers now go and rent the DVD), Sean Bean, Steve Buscemi (one of my favorite actors), Michael Clark Duncan and Djimon Hounsou all play major roles.
I won’t be watching this film again any time soon due to the strong emotional response it provoked in me. I almost couldn’t handle the scenes where babies and children were involved. But in retrospect it was a very well done film.
