The Island

So instead of going out, we stayed in and had a little dinner theatre. We have a pretty nice setup - projector, high quality surround sound. Usually when we watch a movie we move our long folding tables out of the way, and move the couch to the middle of the room so we have a little in-home theatre. But this time we left one of the tables in the middle of the room, and sat in our office chairs, ate a nice meal, and watched The Island.

Here's a synopsis of the plot I pulled from RottenTomatoes.com:
Lincoln Six-Echo (Ewan McGregor) is a resident of a seemingly utopian but contained facility in the mid-21st century. Like all of the inhabitants of this carefully controlled environment, Lincoln hopes to be chosen to go to the "The Island"—reportedly the last uncontaminated spot on the planet—until he makes a terrible discovery that everything about his existence is a lie…and that he is actually more valuable dead than alive. Together with a beautiful fellow resident named Jordan Two-Delta (Scarlett Johansson), Lincoln makes a daring escape to the outside world he's never known. Now, with the forces of the institute that once housed them relentlessly hunting them down, Lincoln and Jordan engage in a desperate race for their lives.

OK, I'll try to reference that so as not to give anything away.

I was very disappointed by this film. It had a strong premise, and to be honest, if you are looking for a movie with great over-the-top unbelievable action sequences and the strength of plot isn't that important - then this is a great film. Like Michael Bay's other films - Armageddon, The Rock, Bad Boys II (I can't comment on Transformers, haven't seen it yet) - The Island has a lot of big, explosive action sequences. Much of which is just flat out impossible - these kids would be dead for sure. But the plot is full of holes.

Some of it was just silly little stuff - like that no one checked Johansson's character for weapons when the elite private security guys (including former Navy SEALS and other badasses) finally capture her. Or early on when they put one of the other utopian residents down, they do so in an unnecessarily painful way. If you are going to kill someone through an IV - make them overdose on Morphine or something, there is no reason they need to go through all that. In the context of the scene it makes absolutely no sense. Vets treat our animals more humanely than that.

I wish I could elaborate on all the holes without giving the premise of the movie away, but lets just say there is a bit of a conspiracy, and there is no possible way you could pull an operation like that off without being exposed just based on the number of employees necessary to maintain it. We are talking janitors, doctors, lunch ladies... thousands. And not in some third world country, but in the middle of Arizona or something.

The sad thing is that it started out strong, and had real potential. But as the story line tried to evolve, it really just unraveled.