The Island is almost like two separate movies. It starts off as a very interesting sci-fi flick with a really interesting premise. There's a futuristic society, a global plague, an island paradise, and a sense that something just isn't right. The director painstakingly builds the tension and the sense of unease until Ewan MacGregor's character finally discovers the truth.

At that moment, all the interesting ideas and scenarios are lost and the film instantly degenerates into an all-out action flick. It wouldn't be bad if it was good action, but this is truly dumbed-down, outlandish stuff. In one scene, our two main characters fall forty stories or so out of a tall building and then get up and walk away. There's another somewhat ludicrous scene in which the man sent to hunt our heroes is faced with two identical Ewan MacGregors and he must decide which one to kill. I'm still not sure what he based his decision on.

This movie could have been a lot better if they hadn't… more »

The Island is almost like two separate movies. It starts off as a very interesting sci-fi flick with a really interesting premise. There's a futuristic society, a global plague, an island paradise, and a sense that something just isn't right. The director painstakingly builds the tension and the sense of unease until Ewan MacGregor's character finally discovers the truth.

At that moment, all the interesting ideas and scenarios are lost and the film instantly degenerates into an all-out action flick. It wouldn't be bad if it was good action, but this is truly dumbed-down, outlandish stuff. In one scene, our two main characters fall forty stories or so out of a tall building and then get up and walk away. There's another somewhat ludicrous scene in which the man sent to hunt our heroes is faced with two identical Ewan MacGregors and he must decide which one to kill. I'm still not sure what he based his decision on.

This movie could have been a lot better if they hadn't dumbed it down so much in the second half. There were some great possibilities and some really interesting ideas that were lost. One example I'm thinking of is the notion that clones will eventually begin to obtain the memories of the people they were cloned from.