When I watch something while I’m cycling indoors, it generally has to be fast paced. Action movies tend to have a lot going on between the dialogue, so I don’t miss anything if my heartbeat hops to 150+. And I DO miss things if my heart beat really gets up there and the sweat is pouring down and my brain stops working quite as well. Not so long ago I watched the Spartacus series, if that gives you a feel for what cuts through the calorie expenditure.
So I picked Michael Bay’s The Island as I’d never watched it and I enjoy dystopias, having majored in them at Hamline. I hated this movie. I like Logan’s Run. I even like Parts: The Clonus Horror when MST3K is riffing. But The Island... This was not a good movie, no matter how many “it’s the hidden treasure of the Michael Bay movies” apologists there are on the internet.
From the non-stop product placement, to the “the island is us” sex scene, to the weird objectification jabs at Scarlett (and they were really strange – like construction worker pickup lines and peeking down her shirt when her organs are going to be harvested, although maybe you could make the case that’s about all parts of a woman being on the table as a commodity – but I don’t think he goes anywhere near that deep philosophically or ethically), to everyone just sort of wandering outside at the end and the well off folks who know there’s a problem at the facility and didn’t have a problem with harvesting thinking beings sort of throwing in the towel and giving the breakdown of the system no mind, there was not much to love about this movie. Although this syfy write up disagrees with me and says you can’t really go wrong with twice the Ewan MacGregor. https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/47-thoughts-we-had-while-watching-the-island. Fine, although douchey original Ewan is really damn annoying. I recommend that syfy list of 47 thoughts. It sums things up better than I could on a 15 year (2020) rewatch.
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