One of my all time favorites.

Good start, but then it gets ruined

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

I must admit I'm biased and I enjoy dystopia movies. Michael Bay puts a different spin on it. He doesn't want to keep that Blade Runner/THX/1984 atmosphere throughout. He needs to break out and he does it in his own style. So there are car chases, explosions, helicopter crashes and Force assisted stunts. But, I'm not watching Michael Bay's movies for the philosophy. Though there is enough of that. The premise of the movie is based on a common theme in conspiracy theories: that the rich people farm the rest of us, and control every aspect of our lives through what we wear, what we eat, what we see and whom we are allowed to associate with. The clothes can only be white, the food can only be healthy, the view is controlled from a holographic room and you can't touch other people. There are plenty of great special effects and the movie is quite loud. But, the performances of the leads are what's keeping the things together. There is real chemistry between the two leads. I also want to mention Steve Buscemi who is so great at quirky supporting roles.All in all it's a good movie which had the potential to be great had Michael Bay been Ridley Scott.

I couldn't remember any Ewan McGregor movies. I liked him in Fargo so I thought I'd check out a few more. And ironically another one with a dual role.Great film. It is somewhere in between the Matrix, Equilibrium and some of the writers own ideas, but aside from some weird holes in the plot (why isn't 'the product' better secured?) the film is really fun to watch.And, most importantly: Sean Bean's character dies :) I can't think of a single movie or TV show that his character survives. He must be fun to kill.

Apparently this movie came out 10 years ago, but I had no knowledge of it until today. I'm normally not a big fan of these high budget mainstream action flicks, however this movie has an original entertaining premise, that had me enthralled. I just looked this up on IMDb and, while it's ranked pretty decent, I'm surprised this didn't do very well in the theater. Meanwhile a complete piece of crap like Armageddon can do 200,000,000. I guess I'll never figure it out. I noticed other reviewers saying that this felt like a 2 part movie, but I didn't think anything of it until I saw some reviews saying that. The first half went pretty fast for me, even though it's the slower portion of the movie. It may just be me, but I was more entertained during the non action sequences, but they have some really big budget action sequences going on. I acting was top notch all around. I enjoyed the Steve Buscemi character a lot (relatively small role, but was a major plot driver in the movie). Anyways, if you're someone who is prone to like action movies, I don't know how you pass this one up and who knows you may still enjoy otherwise. Maybe it helps if you find the premise intriguing, which I definitely did.

**SPOILERS** Okay, now that I've seen three of Michael Bay's films I understand his 'thing' as an artist. He's basically a twelve year old boy with millions of dollars. But, like, the sort of twelve year old who rides a dirt bike behind a trailer park, drinks the leftover beers he finds in communal spaces, throws firecrackers at stray cats and scopes out females twice his age. Basically, Bay is a simple-minded idiot with nothing new or interesting enough to be considered anything more than lucky in the industry. He's not subtle. Not creative. Not deep. He's a what-you-see-is- what-you-get sort of artist and has marketed himself on what he does best- action. The only reason why anyone would ever see any Bay film is for the action. Screw the characters and story, if there's a reason why Bay keeps getting hired to direct, it's because he delivers with explosions, metal scraping metal and thousands upon thousands of dollars in collateral damage. So, in that regard, the film did what it was supposed to; provide ample action scenes and sprinkle in a little plot here and there. If The Giver, The Matrix and Aeon Flux didn't exist, I'd say the story was passable. But it was yet another dystopia reality film which means it demanded a flair of originality. The time the story takes place was left pretty arbitrary but if I know human nature like I do, I think it's safe to say that there's one predictable reaction to what's practically meeting a farm cow that suddenly gained existentialism- fear and violence. Over the course of time, humans have proved that the appropriate response to something new, confusing, surprising and scary is to lash out. Caution overpowers curiosity. I believe the moment Sean Bean and Steve Buscemi's characters recognized defiance and cognition in the main character, they would've quarantined and/or killed him. Considering these organ donors were kept so hush-hush from the public, you KNOW it's a secret for good reason. Why would they go to such lengths to keep them hidden then turn a blind or curious eye when there's a threat of the farm cow going public?So I get that the only people who can afford a farm cow/organ donor would be the incredibly wealthy. But I got really hung up on the occupations of the two main benefactors and how it seemed like a portrayal of bad-ass lucrative jobs according to gender. Thus, an automotive designer and a porn star. Wow. No subtleties there huh? Just a dude who draws sick motorcycles and a chick who takes a penis or two on camera. Michael Bay surprised no one by providing a female support character who's role was to serve as something to bounce dialogue off of, provide character development (for the main character) and most importantly, just look hot for the audience. That's Bay's thing; the female characters in movies serve as hot pieces of meat that help further dialogue. They're pretty unessential to the story. They're just accessories. And I think the two occupations of the main characters serve as good proof of Bay's opinion on gender roles. So clearly this is not the movie to watch if you're into gender equality. Back to the action though. Like I said, this is probably the only reason to see a Bay film. If you're like me, though, once you've seen one five minute action scene from Bay, you've seen them all. So I didn't have fun watching The Island at all. In fact I skipped the action scenes to see more plot development. In the end, I didn't finish the film because it was so unrewarding in every aspect. If I liked all the needless action, I'd say those scenes made the movie worth watching. But as someone who rolls their eyes with every Michael Bay explosion, I can safely say The Island had nothing worthwhile in it. **SPOILER-FREE CONCLUSION** Coming from someone who doesn't wet themselves over expensive and elaborate CGI action scenes and car chases, this movie is a complete waste of time. The story has been done before and the one original twist doesn't makeup for anything. The behavior is unrealistic. The main characters are so uninteresting and essentially echoes of every main characters in every Bay film. Once again, Bay demonstrates that he has a basic understanding of film and when given basically all the money he could ask for, produces what you'd expect a twelve year old prepubescent Hot Wheels fanatic to make. The action scenes are predictably very well rendered and well made and the highlight of any Bay film (if you like that stuff). This was a film made by an idiot, for idiots, hence I rate it 3/10. Points scored for big budget and notably good actors. Points lost for being a twelve year old's fever dream.