I get it, everyone loves to hate on Michael Bay movies. But those who do, often ignore Michael Bay’s greatest scifi film, which thankfully Youtube has released for free in their ‘free movies’ platform. It’s sad that The Island doesn’t get more love because I’m convinced it was one of the greatest scifi films of the first decade of the 21st century.
Why would I say that? Let me count the ways:
- It’s a brilliant standalone film that takes a scifi concept out the box, plays with it, and puts it back like so many other scifi films of the 70s and 80s.
- It’s got a perfect blend of high-brow science and action – Bay never duplicated that unnerving and yet amazing vibe in any other project
- Like Gattaca, The Island hits some powerful notes of social commentary and ‘what if.’ We’re still wrestling the bioethical questions of both films years after they came out.
Here’s a quick synopsis: Michael Bay delivers a striking look at a strange world of the future in this sci-fi action drama. Midway through the 21st century, Lincoln Six Echo (Ewan McGregor) lives in a confined indoor community after ongoing abuse of the Earth has rendered most of the planet uninhabitable. One of the only places in the outside world still capable of sustaining life is an idyllic island where citizens are chosen to live through a lottery. Or at least that’s what Lincoln and his fellow citizens are taught to believe; the truth is that Lincoln, like everyone he knows, is actually a clone who is kept under wraps to provide needed organs when the person who supplied his or her DNA falls ill. When he becomes aware that his existence is a fraud, Lincoln escapes to the outside world with a fellow clone, Jordan Two Delta (Scarlett Johansson), though the powers that be are determined to see that no one gets away alive.
Give The Island a watch, it’s a compelling scifi story masquerading as the CGI prequel to The Transformers. If you’re a scifi nerd, this movie will suck you in. If you enjoyed this discussion, please feel welcomed to dive down the rabbit hole of every other Sci-Friday I’ve published in the past couple years. Have a great weekend! 🙂
