4 of 4

My full review is at Looking Closer.

Other Christian film critics wish they could have voted these filmmakers off The Island.

Steven D. Greydanus (Decent Films) says, ever so carefully, "The Island is the closest thing so far to a good Michael Bay film. Damning with faint praise, yes—but bear in mind that most of Bay's filmography to date … deserves to be damned with loud damns. So let me repeat: The Island is Bay's best film to date, and Bay's best effort to date at a meaningful, thoughtful film."

Tom Neven (Plugged In) says, "The stunts are so extreme and over-the-top you just can't suspend disbelief for long enough chunks of time to enjoy them. Granted, it's more serious than your typical Bay movie, but that does little more than call unwarranted attention to the story's inadequacies. So with no compelling reason to dwell on the main text or the subtext, pretty much all you're left with is lots and lots of chase scenes and explosions, a few fistfights and smatterings of vulgarity."

Christian Hamaker (Crosswalk) writes, "The shift to … by-the-numbers action-film clichés pushes into the background the film's earlier questions about the purpose and meaning of life, providing a too-tidy resolution that leaves viewers superficially sated. While The Island deserves credit for addressing the downside of our culture's obsession with 'quality of life' at all costs, its insistence on raising the bar for sheer summer-movie spectacle ultimately wins out, and disappoints."

Offering the only complimentary review, Harry Forbes (Catholic News Service) writes, "Bay's action-packed thriller … has the usual (and regrettable) mind-numbing explosions and car crashes, through admittedly deftly executed. … Production designer Nigel Phelps has succeeded in creating a convincing futuristic environment, and the overall look of the film is striking. … The film is rife with moral considerations … and conveys a positive overall message about the sanctity of life and, of course, though hardly a serious treatise on the subject, paints a frightening picture of the consequences of cloning, making this a good cautionary tale."

Mainstream critics agree that the film requires you to turn your brain off. A few of them find it's an acceptable entry in the "mindless fun" category.

Gene Edward Veith (World) says, "Whether its message comes from the views of the filmmakers—the action-movie director Michael Bay and writer Caspian Tredwell-Owen—or whether it just emerges logically from the movie's premise, The Island packs a powerful pro-life punch … [and] makes an important imaginative contribution to the current debates, reminding us that clones are not monsters. The monsters are the people who do the cloning and those who are willing to destroy life just to enhance their own."

Peter Suderman (Relevant) says "the plot, such as it is, is ancillary to Bay's destructive impulses; story points exist only to move the characters from one rollicking set piece to another. You get the feeling that if the film could inject action scenes intravenously, it would. It's not so much a movie as an action-scene delivery system."

Denny Wayman and Hal Conklin (Cinema in Focus) compare the scientists of this film to King Herod, who killed infants to protect his throne; and they conclude, "Whether terminating the lives of cloned women who give birth for adoptive parents or placing in gas chambers those clones whose curiosity makes them impossible to manipulate, this film presents the reality that such control over others' is murder."

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