The Island A Movie Review	MPAA Rated - PG-13 It's 2:07 Long A Review by The Dude on the Right

We are quickly introduced to Lincoln Six Echo (Ewan McGregor) and Jordan Two Delta (Scarlett Johansson). They are living in this precisely monitored society where it’s not too good to have your proximity too close to a member of the opposite sex and they check your pee in the morning to see if your sodium intake is too high, adjusting your diet accordingly. Your life is a strict regimen with some slight education, rigorous exercise, and menial work. All of the normal residents are dressed in white uniforms, while the keepers of the peace in the community have more of a black uniform. Your day is highlighted by seeing new people who have been rescued from the contamination of the outside world, and the chance that you might finally win the lottery, your prize being let outside of this world and onto the only habitable place left on earth, with plush greens and a beautiful beach, known simply as The Island.

What the residents don’t know is that they are clones of the wealthy and the powerful living in this temporary world until something goes wrong with their counterpart in the real world, and when you are off to The Island, it’s pretty much sayonara because it might some skin, it might be your baby, it might be an organ or two, but you, the unknowing clone, are now off for chopping up and disposal. Sounds a little unethical, doesn’t it? Well, the rub is that the folks running the joint are pulling the wool over the public’s eye because the clones aren’t really supposed to be thinking beings, but they found out the only way to keep the organs going is to give the clones some kind of life. But what the public doesn’t know won’t hurt anyone, except the clones that is, especially when there are trillions and trillions of dollars involved.

Back to Lincoln and Jordan. It seems Lincoln has been having secret meetings with McCord (Steve Buscemi), who is a computer tech in the real world, and who knows what is really going on. Now, unlike most of the clones, Lincoln is inquisitive, wondering things, and both he and Jordan are having feelings for each other, but because no one teaches them about sex and the proximity alerts pretty much keep the girls from bumping into your willy and giving you that weird sensation you got in puberty, they don’t get it on (at least not yet). Anyway, one night Lincoln sneaks away, up some stairs, and finds the real hospital, and finds out what really happens to people who leave for The Island. Now paranoid because Jordan is scheduled for departure in the morning, he grabs her and they escape the complex. There’s some nice help in the outside world from McCord, who explains to Lincoln and Jordan what their fate is, and that maybe, if the outside world could find out the clones are really alive, they could save all of their friends from their eventual fates. Up to this point we have had some chasing, but really just a good thriller.

Sadly, this is where the movie departs from an ethical thriller into a pile of crap.

Now, I know, we should expect with Michael Bay on board that some cool chases and stuff blowing up would happen, but dude, most of it was unnecessary and all of it so over that top that it ruined a potentially fabulous story. Enter some crazed Special Op dudes who really seem to suck at their jobs because our heroes stay alive way too long, enter some flying motorcycles, which, I suppose we are in the future and all, but just seemed more ludicrous than a standard helicopter, and enter a scene where our heroes are trapped like 60 stories up, on the outside of the building, and the giant letter they are holed up on comes crashing down, and low and behold, they survive because there is this net nearby. Honestly, for me, they probably could have saved like fifty million dollars by not having all this excess crap, just have some normal chasing of Lincoln and Jordan by the bad guys, and let the story work itself out.

Wrapping this up, I’m giving "The Island" 1 ½ stars out of 5, but damn I don’t really want to. This movie could have easily hit a 4 or 5 starrer with the absence of the overblown crap. The story was fascinating as our two heroes work to meet their counterparts, coming to grips with their reality, and McGregor and Johansson did some great work, especially for about the first half of the film. When they ultimately hit the real world, Jordan is fine, but now Lincoln just seems too smart for only having the education level of a 15 year old (yes, they try to explain this by saying somehow Lincoln received the memories of his donor, but I’m not buying it). Wait for cable for this one, sadly.

That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!