The Island
- Ewan McGregor, Scarlett Johansson
- UGC (now Cineworld), 136 minutes, 12A, 2005
I think this is one of those films that the same person could rate
very differently depending on their mood when they first saw it.
It's certainly easy to come up with reasons to rave about it —
Scarlett Johansson, interesting plot concept, Scarlett Johansson,
rich visuals and unique camera work, oh, and did I mention Scarlett
Johansson. On the other hand, it easy to come up with criticisms —
Ewan McGregor whilst a reasonable choice for the role(s) he plays,
is just too well known now - I kept finding myself adding in bits
of Obiwan Kenobi to his character and even heard myself saying "I
hate it when he does that!" to some of the aerial combat scenes.
The product placement is almost obscene (think Austin Powers' spoof
product placement scene): Puma, Cisco, XBox, MSN Search, Tag Heuer,
Calvin Klein, and Ben & Jerry's being the ones that have stuck
in my mind four days later. A number of the action scenes are (in
my opinion) unnecessarily implausible, and there are various holes
in the plot if you really start picking at it.
All in all, the negatives don't really detract too much from the
enjoyment value of the film, and in some ways are even quite
amusing. To sum it up in one word - Fun. Rating: 3.5/5