The Hindu Business Line : <I>The Island</I> - Skimming over a world of cloning

I AM going to tell you about the smartest investment you will ever make. You will live sixty to seventy years longer." Carnes' s (Max Baker) offer is tempting. Living as we do in the age of organ transplants and knowing well the drift of human society, cloning is a fertile subject for imagination. It makes you grant the benefit of a film to the cloning facility executive's bait.

Take it and you convincingly enter the facility's world, where hundreds of clones reside in the belief that the planet is wholly contaminated after an ecological disaster save `The Island', entry to which is based on a lottery. In reality, the lottery is a gateway to death. The clones are being farmed for their organs, harvested when required by their mortal sponsors. As Lincoln Six Echo (Ewan McGregor) tells his sponsor, Tom Lincoln, after the former escapes into the outside world, "I am your insurance policy".

It was a policy that also needed the clone's awakening from a totally vegetative state. Merrick (Sean Bean) who manages the facility says, "without human experience, without life, the organs failed". In the process, Tom Lincoln's policy goes askew because Six Echo disproves impressions of stunted maturity, gains memory of the sponsor's life and questions the monotonous harmony of his world. At heart, the story is relevant and attempts are made to link the clone's deceptively happy life to our own conformist traits. "Why do you always question the good? You always think about the bad," Six Echo's friend Jordan Two-Delta (Scarlett Johansson) complains.

Her faith in Merrick's ordered facility is shaken when Six Echo shows her its true intent. The film's story revolves around their escape into the real world, the chase to hunt them down and Lincoln's meet-up with his sponsor, whose boat the `Renovatio' had figured in the clone's dreams.

The script's core survives on such human parallels anchored through quips like Merrick's when told that an infection may have introduced Renovatio into Six Echo's mind, "an infection can't teach you Latin". Or that of McCord's (Steve Busceni) - the clones' sole friend in the outside world - on why their existence is a secret, "just because people love to eat the burger doesn't mean they want to meet the cow". Bland and sour like reality.

Where the story flops is in the trade-off to give the viewer his popcorn's worth. Enter McCord's smart comment, "I know you are new to the human experience. But there is one universal truth and that is, you never give a woman your credit card". This, to a Six Echo and Jordan who tasted sunshine only yesterday. Even McCord's explanation of their cloned status is dismissive and surprisingly, accepted fast. "You are copies of people who live in the real world." Not a shudder anywhere. The film's sense of emotion is as sterile as the interiors of the cloning facility. Blame it on behavioural restrictions at the lab, but where is the meat for audience-connect?

Six Echo gazes with wonder at an insect; is nearly bitten by a rattlesnake but seems at home in Los Angeles. As audience, you have to accept these contradictions or miracles.

Like the proverbial tip of the iceberg, `The Island' skims over a world of cloning sans any inquiry. It partly compensates with first-rate action and some interesting frames. Acting is restrained. For added measure you have Djimon Hounsou (remember him from Amistad) as Albert Laurent charged with getting back the escapees and Michael Clarke Duncan (of Green Mile fame) as the clone of a sports star. The gadget crazy can also watch out for a flying motorcycle and a Cadillac Cien concept.

But it's a pity that the film eventually boils down to just that and no more. A futuristic bike, a sexy car and a clutch of unforgettable crashes are sole take-away from a film about the self and its farmed copy. `The Island' is slated for release on July 29.

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