The movie reviewed here is NOT for children, and also not for many other people who are not fans of this genre.
- GENRE: Action / Science Fiction
- ACTORS: Ewan McGregor, Scarlett Johansson, Djimon Hounsou, Steve Buscemi, Sean Bean, Michael Clarke Duncan, Ethan Phillips, Brian Stepanek, Noa Tishby, Siobhan Flynn
- RATING: PG-13
- PARENTAL NOTE: Not suitable for children. Lots of violence. Killing and mayhem aplenty, though not really explicit “gore.” The chase scene shows a lot of “bad” guys being killed, and implies collateral deaths by bystanders.
- INTENDED AUDIENCE: This movie is suitable for adults, though it may not be appreciated by those who are not fans of the genre.
- GENERAL PLOT: (No spoilers) Futuristic look at a colony living underground in a contaminated world. They are waiting for a chance to win a lottery to go to “the Island”–the last unpolluted place left above ground, on Earth
- REVIEW: As one expects from a science fiction and/or action film, it turns out that the situation was not actually as originally believed by the main characters. Though I can’t call this a “wholesome” or especially “thought provoking” movie, the film did score a couple of important points:
(1) Humans SHOULD NOT take human life1;
(2) Only God CAN create human life2; and
(3) Matters of life and death are best left to God.3 - RECOMMENDATION: This is an action movie. Many people will be highly offended by every movie in this genre because of the violence, and other questionable elements. There may have been some bad language, but it was not prevalent. I don’t count curse words when I watch a movie. Aside from the moral message, the main draws to this movie were (not necessarily in the order of importance) the big chase scene and Scarlett Johansson. I believe a lot of people4 would be very forgiving of shortcomings in plot, acting and execution, so long as Scarlett Johansson’s image fills the screen so much of this movie. Speaking of the plot and the acting–they were OK for a major motion picture. No one is going to mistake this film for the best movie ever made, but I felt somewhat satisfied by the experience of watching it.
- RATING (out of 5 stars):
Note: Click on the screen after the video loads if you need to go to the YouTube website for a bigger picture.
NOTES:
i do not think that i would like this movie. just saying.
Since this movie was rated 3 stars, there is only a 3 out of 5 chance that you will like the movie.
[Note from Editor: *** SPOILER ALERT! ***]
i mean my tolerance for michael bay is pretty low (so according to this review the main draw for me would be scarlett johansson?)
also, i don’t think it would be “spoiling” anything to reveal the real circumstances…the trailer you provided doesn’t mention the “actual” plot, but according to the description on youtube it is also some guy’s film class project.
the reason i looked into it is i was confused at your caution in the review when i seemed to know the whole plot having only ever seen the (real) trailer in theaters. clearly the filmmakers weren’t big on “spoiler alerts,” here’s the preview i saw back then and as you can see it basically gives the whole movie away (so uh, spoiler alert i guess?): http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6mxn7_the-island-theatrical-trailer-1_shortfilms
hey, there aren’t any spoilers in that comment!