Monday, Jan 02, 2006

The Island - 2005

As some of you may know, the director of yesterday's movie (Parts: The Clonus Horror, Robert S. Fiveson) has sued Michael Bay and Dreamworks. He claims that Bay's latest action extravaganza, The Island, is a ripoff of Clonus.

Well, I watched both, back to back. The only thing these two movies have in common is clones and harvesting them for spare parts. Robert Fiveson might as well sue George Lucas for Episode Two. I normally support the little guy against the big ol' crummy studios. In this case, Fiveson's got nothing.

But now, on to the flick. The Island didn't do very well at the theater, and didn't get very good reviews. One reason might be that The Island is an action movie where nothing much happens for the first hour. I will admit, once the action starts, its pretty much non-stop for the rest of the movie. You just gotta get past the first hour, and I don't think many people will be able to.

But BOY! Once it starts, hang on to your hat. The car chase scene is awesome. Its especially interesting when you hear the director say in the commentary that its NOT computer generated. No wonder this movie cost 122 million dollars. They spend $5-10M on one scene alone. And during that scene, they destroy a $600,000 camera. They spent more replacing one camera than Fiveson spent to make Clonus.

Its a modern movie, so its got everything on the disc. Good picture and sound, subtitles, commentary, everything I demand in a DVD.

Three beers out of five beers, but don't try a drinking game of everytime they say clone you drink. You'll die of thirst.