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The clones have been told that there is just one remaining natural "pathogen-free zone" in the world, a place that is called "the island"; and every now and then, a clone wins a "lottery" that supposedly sends him or her to this paradise. What the clones don't know—and what Lincoln discovers, to his horror—is that "the island" is just a myth, and that the clones who win the "lottery" are actually taken to another part of the facility where they are, so to speak, "processed" like the mere "products" their creators believe them to be. Terrified, Lincoln and Jordan escape to the outside world, where they hope to expose what's going on with McCord's reluctant, minimal help.

Jordon Two-Delta (Johansson) fights to reveal the truth

While some Christians might cheer the film's demonization of scientists and others who play God and treat human life as just another form of animal or machine, etc., etc., the story also has Gnostic overtones that could be interpreted as critical of religion. Just as The Truman Show portrayed a God-like figure who tried to trap a soul within his artificial world by playing on his fears, so too The Island shows how the clones are fed false myths about the evil world outside and the imaginary paradise waiting for them. And just as films like Pleasantville have portrayed sexuality as a liberating force that allows people to break out of the perfect paradises created for them by God and men, The Island presents sexuality as the true fulfillment of the clones' mythic desires, too. "The island is real," says one clone to her partner after they experience the best sex two virgins have ever had. "It's us."

In fairness, the film's mythic parallels become more complicated once the clones escape their world. One of the first creatures they encounter in the Arizona desert is a serpent—a rattlesnake, in fact—and the clones are simply too innocent to realize that it poses a danger to them. Similarly, sexual freedom has its limits; when Lincoln meets the man who had him cloned (also played by McGregor, who has a wonderful chemistry with himself), the original Lincoln says he has hepatitis, "a parting gift from God for all my philandering." And the reason the clones exist in the first place, of course, is because the humans on the outside want to live forever, even if it means tampering with nature to do so.

McCord (Steve Buscemi, left) is the only person in the outside world Lincoln can trust to help him

Whether these elements are signs of thematic complexity or just confusion on Bay's part is an interesting question. Certainly the film has other problems that make you want to scratch your head, like the brand-name sneakers worn by the clones (no environment is so pure or sterile that you can't put a product placement in there!), or the way some of the clones—who, if I heard this correctly, are built from their sponsors' DNA, with memories programmed separately—somehow inherit their sponsors' memories, too.

And ultimately, whatever message the film might have had is ultimately drowned out by the violence—which, incidentally, is a little more difficult to follow here than in Bay's other films, partly because the futuristic machines he destroys are not as familiar to the audience as the national monuments that were featured in some of his other movies. The film itself remains a patchwork of clichés—evil corporations, evil Frankenstein-like scientists, and so forth—which is the one kind of cloning that Hollywood does accept.

Talk About It

1. Do you think this movie has anything to say about current debates concerning genetic and biological engineering? If so, what? Does it favor one side over another?
   
   
2. Dr. Merrick (Sean Bean), the scientist in charge of the island, says the clones have no souls. Do you agree or disagree? Does it make any difference that the clones were not conceived or born the natural way?
   
   

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