The Island (2005)

Certain movies that abide in terms of genre can often have distinct differences in content that completely separate one another. Movies that have this type of vividness are rarities these days, at least they come up much less often than what was once common. The Island is a movies that can be placed into this category, and to compare the differences one can look at I, Robot vs. The Island. I, Robot deals with robots who are cloned for public civil services and are thought to not have much brainwork besides punching in and calculating, which is offset as the creator of the robots finally gives a single one the ability to think and dream. The Island deals with the same aspect, in a sense...

Set in the year 2019, somewhere around the Los Angeles area, Lincoln Six Echo (Ewan McGregor) and Jordan Two Delta (Scarlett Johansson) are two subjects who are part of a living facility in which they long to win a lottery of sorts. This random picking decides that, amongst all the members of the facility, whom gets to leave to an inhabited island. This island, with the exception of the facility, is a sole survivor of a “contamination” that took the majority of the world’s survivors. Lincoln is also appointed to meet with the doctor of the building in order to discuss nightmarishly vivid dreams and thoughts, and starts to point out that he wants “more” to come out of the facility. Soon, when entering restricted areas of the structure, Lincoln discovers to find members of the medical staffis catering to people unwillingly, and busts himself along with Jordan out.

Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson are no shining stars in the film, and have middle-grade levels of acting, nothing too awe-inspiring nor falling asleep. The dialog between the characters is very developed, and emotion pours through many of their words. Steve Buscemi also plays in the film, and despite being a minor character, is very effective as the engineer role he plays. Audio is lackluster in the film and, despite some action sounds and music during high tension seems, little background music can be heard. The beginning and ending both have intro/outro music, but it doesn’t seem well-composed or livid in its playing, but does an outstanding job of carrying into the film, and gradually leaving it. All of this isn’t to divulge the assumption that the music aspect was very ignored, just not very well developed.

The film is most gifted in surviving around the central plot and going through the story well, along with that it features great cinematography and camera work, along with an overall sense of setting during many of the film’s scenes. At one point in the film, McCord (Steve Buscemi) is in the bathroom of a bar not far outside the facility borders and Lincoln Six Echo happens to enter the bathroom when he and Jordan Two Delta discover the bar after breaking out. This instance was a nice transition and blending of the story, and luckily, it proceeds with this degree of creativity throughout the latter story of the movie.

Even though The Island lacks in a few aspects that are expected of most films, it succeeds in enough others to set itself apart in this respect. Personally, it was an emotional tale with good storytelling and I would no doubt recommend it.

Innovation: 9.5

Entertainment: 9.0

Audio: 4.5
Effects: 8.5
Overall: 9.3

Personal Rating*: 9.8

*The personal rating differs from the others as in I don't take factors of how the film would be in the industry and audiences in the normal ratings. The PR is based solely on my overall liking of the film.