The Island [Blu-ray]

Region All Blu-Ray pressing. In this action thriller from director Michael Bay (PEARL HARBOR, ARMAGEDDON), survivors of global contamination live in a sterile, self-contained world where their every move is monitored. The rules are easy: be pleasant, refrain from asking questions, and don't rock the boat. Everything they need is provided for them, from the white uniforms that magically appear in their closets, to their customized cafeteria-style meals. The survivors all eagerly await their big payoff: winning the lottery and being sent to The Island, the only remaining untainted land in the world. But Lincoln Six-Echo (Ewan McGregor) yearns for more from his life and begins to wonder what really lies outside the thick walls. When his best friend, Jordan Two-Delta (Scarlett Johansson), wins the lottery, he knows that he has to find out the truth about their world before she departs. What he finds is terrifying enough to send Lincoln and Jordan fleeing from the facility to the real world where they quickly discover that they are clones, and that both The Island and global contamination are a ruse. The clones sole purpose is to be harvested for replacement parts when their sponsors need them. With his business now in jeopardy, Dr. Merrick (Sean Bean), the founder of the cloning company, hires a crack team led by Albert Laurent (Djimon Hounsou) to track down his escaped product. Wild chase scenes through Los Angeles circa 2050 are punctuated by high-tech transportation as Lincoln and Jordan run for their lives

When you add up all the best things about The Island, you might just conclude that there's hope yet for Hollywood's most critically reviled hit-maker, Michael Bay. Recruited by Steven Spielberg to direct this lavish and often breathtaking sci-fi action thriller, Bay rises to the occasion with an ambitious production that is, by his standards (and compared to Bay's earlier hits like The Rock and Armageddon), surprisingly intelligent as it explores the repercussions of cloning in a sealed-off society where humans are cultivated for spare parts, surrogate parenthood, and full-body replacements for wealthy clientele. But when two of the clones (Ewan McGregor, Scarlett Johanssen) begin to question their fate and the motives of their keepers, they escape into the real world and The Island becomes just another Michael Bay action extravaganza, albeit an impressively exciting one. With elaborate chase scenes and a high-tech feast of CGI to dazzle the eye, The Island recycles much of the plot from 1979's Clonus while borrowing elements from Logan's Run, Gattaca and Minority Report, and while it's not as smartly conceived as those earlier films, there's no denying that, in many ways, it's Bay's best film to date. --Jeff Shannon