Posthuman Blues

I just watched "The Island." What an appallingly silly movie. The action hinges almost entirely on fortuitous accidents; in one scene, the main couple survives falling from a great height (while clinging to a chunk of uprooted outdoor signage) by detaching at precisely the right time to fall into a scant cushion of chain-link mesh. The whole movie is a numbing series of near-miraculous and largely unwitting escapes.

The future (we're told it's sometime after 2050) is only peripherally futuristic. Characterization is conveniently dispensed with because the protagonists are clones with the mentality of children. Stock characters prevail. We have the ethically challenged corporate genius; the evil twin; the seedy, wise-cracking -- and above all, disposable -- technician who knows and resents the Awful Truth but apparently isn't bothered enough to be deterred from showing up to work.

"The Island" shamelessly bogarts its visuals (and at least one key revelatory scene) from genre classics like "THX-1138" and "The Matrix." (Watch the hero learn that he's an artificial humanoid with implanted memories and you'll be instantly transported to Harrison Ford's apartment in "Blade Runner," where a doe-eyed Sean Young learns precisely the same thing.)

"The Island" pretends to celebrate the human spirit. But spirit is exactly what's lacking. The details are sloppy. The back-story is unconvincing. The dialogue is downright painful.

The only genuinely enjoyable moment arrives when, by pure chance, a Hummer gets obliterated during one of the film's innumerable chase scenes. Nice touch. If only the villain's inevitable demise could have aroused so much vicarious satisfaction.