The Island Movie Review

The Island Movie Review

This movie from 2005 was directed by Michael Bay and is much more of a thriller than many of his previous works are. It stars Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson as Lincoln Six Echo and Jordan Two Delta. The movie begins in an isolated, futuristic yet somewhat dystopian community that these two main characters live within.

Their daily lives are structured and monitored in a way that shows there is an overall sense of things needing to be kept a certain way. We aren't sure yet why, but we soon meet more members of this community who are clad in nearly identical looking clothing, have similar sleeping and living quarters, and who also have a daily job they go to in this structured society.

Lincoln starts having dreams that are almost like memories from a life he never lived. It starts to cause him some distress in his everyday activities, which is noted by Dr Merrick, a scientist who runs the compound. We begin to understand that the outside world is contaminated and the residents of this compound are here to help repopulate the planet.

There is a lottery which determines which residents get to go to the island paradise that is the reward for those who win. The island is spoken of as a paradise that everyone in the compound desires to go to. This desire helps keep behavior in check, along with the high level of regulation regarding activities, and there are even restrictions on proximity to members of the opposite sex. Friendships are allowed but Lincoln, who is good friends with Delta, is warned about being too close.

Lincoln spots a live moth in a ventilation shaft, which leads him to suspect the outside world is not really contaminated. We soon see the real plot unfold as there is a scene showing an adult Lincoln being removed from a pod, where it appears he was being grown along with many other people in these pods.

Gradually the story unfolds and we see why everyone is being grown and we also see there is an outside world. I think this is a movie that plays out very well in terms of giving away its secrets as it moves along. There is a point towards the last 3rd that the movie becomes more like an action flick, so the pacing changes up until the climax. I think, for the ideas alone, this movie is well worth watching at least once.