Yes it was innovative (sort of). Yes it's action packed (even if epileptic inducing at times). And yes it has lots of shots of Scarlett Johansson being sexy and sultry (even if always fully clothed and little skin showing). But then again what Michael Bay film isn't?
Which leads me to assume that after a few years of not watching his films, only the mythos remains, and that helps the idea of Michael Bay as a great action director permeate, even if in reality, he's shallow (think Armageddon (1998), Pearl Harbor (2001), Bad Boys (1995), et al).
Think of this film as in the same vein of The Transformers trilogy, and you will be pleasantly surprised and satisfied. Think of it as anything else, and you won't.
The Island has almost the same exact film-making team as The Transformers trilogy including Steve Jablonsky (composer) and Paul Rubell (editor), although it lacks the same cinematographer, Mauro Fiore who exited the Bay team to go earn an Oscar for Avatar (2009).
That bastard!
But the fact that The Island still manages to maintain the same cinematographic feel and themes as The Transformers trilogy, leads me to conjecture that Michael Bay is really the guiding light, and the cinematographer is just there to facilitate. And facilitate he does.
The cinematography is one of the saving graces of this film. Everything down to the grittiness of the image quality and the perfected color timing, is a pleasure to watch and intake. It even manages to make you forget that Michael Bay thought Ewan McGregor's American accent was a good idea.
Not really!
Cringe.
The camera work is horrible at best, and the overuse of the shaky steady-cam (another Michael Bay joint) is horrible and makes some of the scenes unwatchable and disjointed. It seems sometimes that Michael Bay thinks that a shaky camera can compensate for bad pacing, or cover up a lack of fighting prowess in an actor. And while it can, and often times it does so successfully, here it manages to feel forced, and yet still not cover Scarlett's bad fighting skills (for a good example of this done well, watch Iron Man 2 [2010]).
The stylized camera shots and angles are a treat to watch, and alone make this film worth a closer look. Even if the excessive use of slow-motion and shaky camera movements don't.
The synthesized music feels ill fit and awkward at best, and sometimes manages to go in the opposite direction of the narrative itself. Sometimes covering the lack of good sound-mixing, which come to think of it, might have been the purpose.
Sad.
The script, as usual for a Bay film, is horrible, and plot holes abound. Including enough to make one realize that if this ever happens in real life, we, as the human race, better have better security, including, at the least, a padlock on the door that leads to the great uncontaminated outdoors.
Oh yeah, and let's not have a giant sign that says "Don't push this button, it will overheat the reactor and cause it to explode."
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| Sample of Product Placement in Film |
Oh, and Mr. Bay, try at the very least, to cover up your product placement the way CBS does on its sitcoms, and don't make them a part of your script rewrites, it's crass.
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| Sample of Product Placement in Film |
The acting was good though, and as usual Steve Buscemi is awesome, but the rest of the cast seems to saunter around in flat unwelcoming characters, including the ones you're supposed to feel sympathy for.
Catch this film on Telemundo over the weekends where I assume it would have an awesomely bad Spanish dub, which might add a much welcomed layer to the film.
If you're a ScarJo fan, or a fan of Ewan McGregor, or alas, even a fan of Michael Bay, then watch this film. As an action film it soars, but as a sci-fi film or social commentary on eugenics it fails. For that, go watch Gattaca (1997).
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