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The Island: Suds and SFX
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A certain someone with arcane knowledge of dishwashing products and assorted other devilish homemaking devices once informed me that those tiny bubbles climbing my arm every time I lay hand to plate were little more than special effects, a display designed to convince the user that something of substance actually happened when soap met ceramic. This factoid would be apropos to nothing, except for the market reality that some bedazzled (mostly male?) customers neglect to note whether each dish emerges clean from its watery depths, so enthralled are they by the thick lather floating on the surface. Plenty of bad detergent gets sold this way.
And many a bad movie. Money-making sci-fi flicks laden down with expensive effects and meticulously crafted costumes, along with a species of action flick full of gratuitous explosions and crazy stunts, often pop under prickly critiques that they are about as effervescent as the soapy bubble. Lots of attention-getting spectacle with no real substance. Enter sci-fi actioner The Island (2005), a film whose tepid reviews turned to universal panning in the wake of its disastrous opening last weekend ($12 million for a film that cost $122 million to make and over $50 million to market). This alone would be reason enough for most Americans to continue dodging Michael Bay’s latest entrée; why catch a flick you won’t be able to discuss with your apathetic co-workers?
I think, however, that this film merits serious attention, and not because it has some pretty artfully constructed (if preposterous) action sequences, or a few compelling character moments. I walked out of this movie last Saturday in a better mood than I’ve been in for quite some time, and it had little to do with the integrity of the whole product. Sometimes, getting an audience to chew on an important idea requires extraordinarily seductive—if expendable—packaging.
In this case, not only DreamWorks’ action-packed trailers and ads, but the plot itself, serve as special effect. The mildly entertaining story, which anyone could punch plenty of holes into if they tried, serves as glitzy vehicle for a far more substantial idea, a rather uncomfortable but important truth voiced multiple times during the movie:
“People will do anything to stay alive.”
The correctness of this old adage is horrible enough in wartime, when scared soldiers commit random atrocities to reduce the very possibility of a personal injury. It becomes something far worse when one considers the new health and life options that will inevitably follow from the scientific quickening which is currently, rapidly reshaping medicine. To what lengths will actors and athletes go to retain their beauty, strength, and speed for a few more breadwinning years? What will the rest of us do to extend our lifespan by a decade or two?
How afraid are we, really, of growing old and disabled? Of dying?
These are the questions asked by the latest film about cloning, a technology not so sci-fi as George Lucas’s movies would have us believe. If you could have a damaged liver replaced by one pulled from a home-grown, seemingly inert replica of your own body, how many questions would you ask about the artificially created clone’s mental and physical circumstances? If you were unable to carry a daughter to term, or perhaps were a model with a money-making figure, how much would you pay to have your child develop in a body identical to your own (and not have to mess with the legal complications surrounding surrogate births)? If my beloved two-year-old daughter were killed tomorrow by a runaway car and the technology existed to bring her back as an infant within a year’s time, how tempted would I be? Hundreds of wealthy folk are already well on the way towards having favorite, terminally ill pets cloned (if you don’t believe me, do a quick Google search).
These may well be the moral dilemmas of the future. If you think abortion has caused a furor, just wait . . .
Posted by Paul Marchbanks at July 30, 2005 8:55 PM
Comments
I think that if living clones of famous people were created then if the original wanted to disappear he could take the clone home, dress him in their own clothes then kill them. they couldn't pin the crime on the famous person because they "died" and all of the fingerprints are the same. all the company had to do is not do that "thermal imprint" thing and they're all set for the perfect crime. also, if you wanted to get a political figuer in hot water teach their clone what sex is and tell the clone that sex must be done with hookers only and then pay the hooker to set up a camera. then kill the clone and show the video to CNN this would work with other things than sex, i.e. teach the clone to be gay, make the clone beat the real person's wife, get the clone drunk and tell him to say "i hate jews"etc. (mel was framed!!), kidding, kidding.
Posted by: Anonymous at January 14, 2007 10:59 PM
oi. I think I might have focused (was I forced by bad direction?) on the wrong thing. My attention paused on each product placement (I daydreamed about a virtual reality XBox for most of the rest of the movie), and each trite plot change. The philosophical basis Paul mentions was removed from my center of attention. Perhaps because genetics is far away from making this a useful reality, or perhaps I saw the philosophical question as the same old question of selfishness dressed up in a subterranean spacesuit. Don't get me wrong, though. I had a great time watching it: it did well at trite...great action and fun to laugh with/at. It's worth having a group in your living room for...it's a community experience film, not a sit quietly and enjoy the esthetics one.
Posted by: Andrew Ginsberg at May 2, 2007 9:24 AM
I totally agree that the central allegory here concerns the "same old question of selfishness," one whose relevance unfortunately never fades--we just come up with new ways of demonstrating our facility at it . . .
Posted by: Paul M. at May 2, 2007 10:38 AM