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'The Island' is a clone of other, better films

The word on the geek grapevine is that top-dollar producer Joel Silver is planning a remake of "Logan's Run," the 1976 film in which inhabitants of a post-apocalyptic safe zone discover Utopia isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Michael Bay has beaten Silver to the punch — and without buying the remake rights. His "The Island" appropriates the escape-from-paradise vibe if not the plot details of "Logan's Run," lumping it together with at least a dozen other movies. Bay and his screenwriting team borrow everything from the tale's foundation (think George Lucas' "THX 1138" and its predecessor "Brave New World") to superficial bits of dystopian detail from "A Clockwork Orange" and "The Matrix." The cinematic gene pool even includes non-sci-fi movies like "Heat," whose Los Angeles fireworks are recalled here.

Dreamworks SKG 'The Island' 2 out of 5 stars The verdict: Fun for an hour or so, but then things get too silly to overlook. Director: Michael Bay Starring: Ewan McGregor, Scarlett Johansson, Djimon Hounsou, Sean Bean, Steve Buscemi Run time: 127 minutes Release date: July 22, 2005 Rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, some sexuality and language. See showtimes On the web Official movie site View the trailer    Trailers require Quicktime Rate "The Island"   Go see it   Make it a matinee   Wait to rent   Don't bother Voter Limit: Once per Hour View Poll Results

"The Island" doesn't have an original thought in its head — but then that's no major complaint when aimed at a hoo-ha action spectacular.

For its first hour or so, the movie is good genre fun. Lincoln Six-Echo and Jordan Two-Delta (Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson) believe they are among the lucky survivors of a planetwide "contamination." They live in a pristine way-station where their health and activities are monitored by Big Brother; every day or so, a "lottery winner" is chosen to relocate to The Island, "the world's last pathogen-free zone."

(Viewers will be cheered to see that not even the apocalypse can stop product placement. Even in this hermetically sealed refuge, brands like Aquafina, Puma and Apple survive. For recreation, a beefed-up Xbox offers holographic boxing.)

But we know better. The Island is like heaven, a promise capable of keeping citizens well-behaved in the here and now, and these "survivors" aren't real people — they're vat-raised "product," clones of wealthy Americans who need replacements for failing organs, skin for face-lifts, and the like. Island-bound residents are actually taken away to surgery rooms, where a kidney or lung will be extracted and the rest incinerated. It's a multibillion-dollar illegal industry run by Sean Bean's Dr. Merrick, whose hyper-modern office is decorated by Picasso and Franz Kline paintings.

Lincoln Six-Echo (let's call him L6E, all right?) learns the truth, and gallantly sets out to rescue his platonic girlfriend J2D, who just won the lottery. Sneaking outside to the real world, they set out to find their genetic "parents" before Merrick's special-forces mercenaries (led by Djimon Hounsou) can hunt them down.

It's about a third of the way through this frantic chase that things begin to get just too silly to overlook. After a nice, if "Matrix"-derivative, highway chase, our heroes hijack a jet-propelled hoverbike — didn't McGregor swear off this sort of thing after "Star Wars"? — and go on a gravity-ignoring ride that sends them through the 70th floor of an office building. They wind up dangling from the far side of that building, naturally, and taking even more liberties with the laws of physics.

Despite an entertaining sequence in which L6E meets the organically grown version of himself, the film never quite recovers from this goofiness. Bay is a stylist without a soul, and his addiction to flashy low angles, stylish silhouettes, and slow-motion make the movie's post-escape half feel much like any other emptyheaded blockbuster.

The same goes for the trick with which L6E evades capture and the way one villain has a last-minute change of heart; these are scenes we've seen far too many times before, and there is nothing added in Bay's retelling. "The Island" is a clone of innumerable better movies, even if it occasionally believes it has a soul of its own.