There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

This was a big movie, I think, 11 years ago. I saw it a year later. I remember The Island being fairly standard sci-fi fare, with human parts or something being grown for sick people.Or something.We get to see Scarlett Johansson get athletic. There are special effects. It's a dystopian future. Ewan McGregor looks irritated.In other words. We've seen all of this before and we will see it again. Different shapely actress in something spandexish. Similar dystopia. Synonymous actor looking grim. The CGI will have gotten better.In other words, if you missed The Island, just wait. You'll see its first cousin eventually, and remember . . . Soylent Green is people!

I love The Island, because it breaks ranks from Michael Bay's mostly uniform career and gives us entertainment where story is as important as action, which can't be said for most of his films. Don't get me wrong, I love his destructive maelstrom of a career to bits (except Transformers and Pain & Gain. Those are shameful.), it's just nice to get a movie from him with something to latch onto besides just... boom crash smash. His visual setups are like fire dancing on the retinas, but with The Island we get to see what's behind those eyes and actually get a concept to explore along with our helping of razzle dazzle. Now this type of story has been done before, in stuff like Logan's Run or the lesser known Clonus Horror, and obviously this time around the story is jazzed by a considerable amount of chromed up energy and adrenaline. In the far future, a group of people are kept inside a gargantuan facility and told that the world's population has been nearly wiped out by a contamination. Only one untainted zone remains: The Island. It's a place where some take off to, after winning a much touted 'lottery' that allows them access. Only, they aren't going to any such place at all. They are selected based on the need for organs, spare biological matter and baby carriers for their human counterparts, the rich and affluent. They're dormant cattle, so to speak, clones awaiting empty promises. Lincoln Six Echo (Ewan McGregor) is one such individual, a curious fellow who first suspects something is wrong with their utopian existence, and once confirmed knows he needs to get out. Dragging along his friend Jordan Two Delta (Scarlett Johansson) he makes a harebrained run for it, escaping the facility and venturing into the world outside, which is anything but contaminated. I like what Bay did with the production design; Things aren't too wacky or space agey, and more or less that same as now, but accents like flying motorbikes or massive additions to existing skyscrapers let us know how brave of a new world it is. Lincoln and Jordan suffer considerable culture shock as they flee, and it's amusing to see the childish way they react to simple things like a telephone, or ordering drinks at a bar. The facility's Director, an arrogant son of a bitch named Dr. Merrick (Sean Bean) sends a team of off the books ex special forces dudes after them, led by Laurent (Djimon Hounsou gets the best moments out of the film, the only actor who can stop the momentum dead in its tracks with his soulful performance). From there a lot of it is a deafening roar filled with chases, car crashes, fights and a spectacular highway chase that will wake up the tenants both above and below your apartment. Yes, Bay just can't help throwing in colossal action scenes where they aren't particularly needed, and complain if you must, but if it's really that much of a wrench in your enjoyment of the actual story going on around it, then use such interludes for a bathroom break or to go apologize to the neighbors for the racket your speakers are kicking up. You can only hope for Bay to reign it in so much, the dude just loves his action. Ask him to direct a Jane Austen adaptation and you can bet your hat he'd throw in a fireball or two in just for good measure. It's his passion, and I don't resent people for what they love to do. In any case it's a terrifically fun piece. McGregor and Johansson are pitch perfect, as they begin to clue in about the world around them, lashing out in anger over what's being done to them and becoming quite resourceful. Bean resists the label of villain with his performance, branding Merrick as an idealist whose breakthrough blinded him into extremism, from which there is no turning back. Steve Buscemi shows up bearing kindly comic relief as a tech worker who assists in their escape. Michael Clarke Duncan is very affecting in one scene as a clone who finds out the truth the worst way possible. There's also work from Shawnee Smith, Chris Ellis, Max Baker, Glenn Morshower and an incredibly bizarre cameo from an uncredited Kim Coates. Steve Jablonsky composes what I believe to be his finest, most stirring work and the best score to date in a Bay flick, adding to the sweeping scope and pure cinematic current that this one soars on. One of my favourites, highly recommended.

**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.

The Island (2005) is a very high octane, action packed, well written, and intriguing movie. Scarlett Johansson and Ewan Mcgreggor do a great job as the two leads, they had awesome characters and they portrayed them really well! Sean Bean was also very good in his twisted character with a sort of god complex. The whole plot of the island is very intricate and clever. I really loved the action sequences and the violence in this movie, none of it was graphic and it was all fun and entertaining to see. Michael Bay did a really great with this movie. I don't care what people say, I think he's a talented film director, and he directed the island very well. The dialogue between and the script was all great and well put together. Dijimon did a good job as well, he was intense and very into the character. Ewan and Scarlett really did have great chemistry together! You could really tell that the love and the feelings between their characters were real and true, no one in this film "phoned in" their performance, I was thankful for that. This movie is deeper and has more heart than I expected, it really reached me and some scenes were emotional because it was so sad. I applaud Michael bay and the entire cast and crew of the island! Job well done! 9/10.