The Island

A Michael Bay film with some thought behind it?! As ridiculous as it may seem, The Island is rooted in similar, preceding films with a bit of ingenuity behind them, and the Master of Bayhem combines his love of shiny things, exploding shiny things and attractive women with a bit of intelligence – an underrated movie that should be seen.

Lincoln Six Echo (McGregor) and Jordan Two Zero (Johannson) inhabit the mysterious, post-apocalyptic world in which lotteries dictate who will leave for the Island - a haven against the biological disease that wiped out most of the planet. Becoming more inquisitive than he perhaps should, Lincoln penetrates the air of mystery surrounding his life and discovers the shocking truths behind his, and others’ lives.

McGregor and Johansson are perfectly matched as the leads, Bay electing to hire some actors with a bit of actual acting ability and his decision proving to be the right one. Ewan McGregor is a great actor – a fact that makes it all the more shocking that he chose to star here. The story gives more than enough credence to his decision however, and he gets to present his mastery of accents as well as convincingly innocent in his character’s lack of knowledge – better him than someone like Ben Affleck any day.

Scarlett Johansson is all too often said to be trading in on her looks for roles – and whilst Bay has these intentions with every film he makes, Johansson is a good actress quite honestly – her character, similar in behaviour to McGregor’s, coyly plays with the sterotypical view of women Johansson would often be picked to play. There aren’t any significant female co-stars, as, after all, Michael Bay likes his attractive leading ladies (Megan Fox, Kate Beckinsale etc.), and with Scarlett onboard the other women are just there to even the numbers out. Shame really as his films might be more popular if they had a bit more oestrogen injected in.

Sean Bean hammers another nail into the proverbial coffin of British actors in Hollywood – surprise surprise, he’s British and he’s the bad guy! Wow. Didn’t see that coming. We’re not all bad by the way! He does his hammy best here, actually managing to be a bit different from the multitude of bad guys he’s played before. Djimon Hounsou pops up in a cool little role here – and as with the rest of the cast, he almost seems to be beyond a Bay film. His character has some interesting moral foibles, but that’s about it. Steve Buscemi plays himself again – that dodgy, shifty, jokey little man who has a secret – but then I suppose he is good at it by now.

Shiny and boom – these two words, added to the high-concept behind the eponymous isle, present a movie that is atypical of Michael Bay whilst presenting a very clever (albeit ripped-off) presentation of one possible human future. With Bay, subtlety is usually not the name of the game, but here his action sensibilities do have to wait behind the plot – and it doesn’t affect the film, rather the action seems supplementary to the concept – an alien idea to many of you I imagine. He’s blatantly ripped off The Prisoner as well as countless other similar films or TV shows, but nevertheless, this movie looks good, has good performances and a surprisingly smart plot for Bay – a hidden gem in his filmography.

Techno-babble and army talk is needless and ridiculous, and the film’s dialogue only picks up when it addresses who the leads are and what their purpose is – as well as in illustrating their innocent, child-like demeanour. Hans Zimmer recycles the themes once more to give us another audio barrage. Seriously, I like his Batman stuff, but you can hear Batman or Pirates in nearly everything else he composes – some ingenuity please! The action takes a while to come, but when it does, it’s typically stunning. Whatever you have against Bay, you cannot deny he has the panache and visual flair to blow stuff up – and a lot of stuff blows up towards the end here. For the remainder of the film, the towers in which the groups live are rendered in a clinical, amazing style – it must have cost loads to make these modern, swish sets that wouldn’t look out of place in an Apple shop or an upmarket bar.

If Michael Bay had more high-concept ideas like this, he’d have been received in a more kindly way by a lot of people. As it is, the public loves his films anyway – as do I – and this one deserves praise for at least attempting to lift itself above the explosions.

7/10