the final movie of the summer review.

it seems like only yesterday we we standing in line at destinta for constantine, and sin city, and the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy, and kingdom of heaven, and stars wars: episode three: revenge of the sith, and batman begins, and land of the dead, and war of the worlds, and fantastic four, and charlie and the chocolate factory.
and now what i never thought would come, the final review until september.
the island, raised some very good ethical and moral questions. but we'll get to that later. it also was yet another movie in the "what is our reality" and again we'll get to that later. but at it purest and most simplest, it was a michael bay action flick, taking place in a not too distant future.
the movie starts with an odd sorta dream. which we'll soon learn is the dream of lincoln six echo. and as he wakes up we find his world, is living inside a completely sterile world. from the look of things, there was a "contamination" and the last known survivors live inside this... this... gigantic complex. he is friends with jordan two delta, played by the scarlett johansson. remember that name, cause i'm going devote a paragraph to her. the movie begins to unfold as we learn that there is no contaminated world, and that lincoln and his friends are merely clones, bred and contained for the sole purpose of providing there outside world counterparts with parts to increase the longetivity of their lives. a great idea but it has been done before.
1979's the clonus horror has people learning they are clones for the same reason. except take the human counterparts out, and put in devious politicians seeking immortal life.
in aspects the michael york classic logan's run, has the same story. the movie has the character running for his life when he turns 30, because in this barbaric futuristic freak world when you turn 30 you die. great movie by the way. cheesy in every aspect. bryan singer is remaking it after he is finished on superman returns so it should be quite fun to see a retelling.
however we will call this an original movie on the pure basis of michael bay's hand behind the director. not that i idealize the man or what not, but he can do action flicks. however, he fails as a director because in previous films he relied purely on his special effects to tell stories. however he succeeds here with a great action/chase film.
acting. ewan mcgregor is pretty good. i wouldnt label this the pinnacle of his career, but he did the role.
scarlett johannson deserves her own little spot here for two reasons. the first is her versatility as an actress. for her age, twenty, she has already performed quite an embodiment of characters. her role in sophia coppola's lost in translation remains, in my book, her best to date. watching interviews with her she's a very calm, and collected individual. and she's not afraid to remain to one genre of filmmaking.
and second. she's freaking hot.
the special effects were amazing in the movie. and the future looked real. you know how you go see these sci-fi flicks and the future is so ridicoulously cliche it's not even funny. this movie looked how our world could look in fifty, sixty years. the cars had the feel like they were next generation, and so did the technology. take that gene roddenberry. there wasn't a vast arsenal of laser blazing technology, there were no klingons, or romulans. the presence of the force, or it's dark side brother were also absent. this was just a well thought up sci-fi flick.
and the story carried with it more questions than an effing farm house with sheep, goats, and small children.
the first and foremost thing that i was thinking about was cloning thing. if we cloned human beings, how do we then view ourselves. how have we effected ourselves, by cloning ourselves. my theory behind this is that the value of human life decreases. take a cd. a simple cd you bought at best buy. it's a fine purchase you made. a damn fine purchase. but wait you've now got the ability to burn that cd over and over again. does your care for the cd remain the same when you've burned several copies. no. it doesn't. and so you leave it out of it's case. let it sit around. get scratched. and you pick up one of your burnt copies and you pick up right where you left off. and so the same happens with the cloning. we lose track of ourselves, and what's right. morally and ethically cloning is wrong. while it is said survival of the fittest, the survival should not revolve around us murdering innocent life.
there's also a whole playing god argument there, but i doubt i have the ability to effectively convey my arguments over that matter. i need to embrace my religion, or god in general, before i can take on such a huge project like that.
the question of reality has been a topic of interest lately in movies. dark city in 1997. the truman show in 1998. the matrix in 1999. movies that make us ask, what is real? an essential plato text entitled allegory of a cave is called into question here. people live in this cave, chained to the walls. but because they've been their, there entire lives they are none the wiser. and so one escapes and learns the true nature of the outside world. the story is a horrific terrible text. however the point is the very bright and enlightening. almost earth shattering in a sense. how do we know that the world we live in is real? how can we define true happiness, or true depression? how do we know what we expierence is called love? we only use these words to describe what we think are these emotions, or what life truly is supposed to be. we have created very real simulacras, or copies without an original. and so how do we continue to live in a world where we are completely unsure of what we are doing? my oh my the questions just pour in.
all and all the movie was a good watch. i reccommend it. and scarlett johannson was really hot. i feel like a tenth grader again.