Your time will come.
Interviewer:
“Mr. Dibley, some people have drawn comparisons between your film 'IF', which ends with a gun battle at a public school, and Mr. Lindsay Anderson's film 'IF', which ends with a gun battle at a public school.”
Dibley:
“Oh yes, well, I mean, there were some people who said my film '2001 – A Space Odyssey', was similar to Stanley Kubrick's! I mean, that's the sort of petty critical niggling that's dogged my career! It makes me sick!”
And so on.
Plagiarism is an ugly word. Not just how it rolls off the tongue like a young and uncertain bird stumbling awkwardly towards the end of a very high branch, just the mere aesthetics of the little bastard is enough to make an artist want to reach for a 9 inch roller and a tray of white primer. But here in the wacky early-morning stages of the Twenty-First Century, plagiarism, at least where movies are concerned, is everywhere. While we still occasionally get a “Napoleon Dynamite” or a “Bubba Ho-Tep”- unique film gems that are fearlessly launched onto an unsuspecting public, we need to face the cold hard facts about human creativity; that damn near everything that comes out of Hollywood today is probably copying something else. If a movie is more than five years old, and made more than five dollars, you can bet its name will come screaming down on us from the glittering marquee one more time.
So when howling mobs took to the streets with pitchforks and torches to protest Michael Bay's 2005 film “The Island”, claiming that it was an act of plagiarism on Robert Fiveson's 1979 film “Parts: The Clonus Horror”, I merely chuckle to myself and reach for another sleeve of Oreos. Trying to point out plagiarism in filmmaking today is like trying to point out bubonic plague during the middle ages. Thank you, Captain Obvious. What would we do without you? The world is forever in your debt. Way to go.
So I recently took an otherwise uneventful Saturday afternoon and turned it into a cinematic experiment the likes of which my home had not seen since the epic “Lord of the Rings: Extended Edition” marathon of, well, just a few odd weeks ago. I sat and watched “The Island”, and “Parts: The Clonus Horror”, back to back. As you can guess from the long winded intro into this review, the similarities were enough to make me say “oh my yes, there ARE similarities, good gracious me.”
THE ISLAND/PARTS is about a group of child-like people living in a “perfect” society where they get to eat healthy, exercise regularly, and have no physical contact with the opposite sex, despite the fact that they are thrust together morning, noon, and night wearing skin-tight jumpsuits (Island), or breezy 1970's running shorts (Parts). As they frolic and scamper in the scintillating daylight of their whimsical little society, they are kept in line, rather coldly and detached, by “keepers” who answer any deep questions about life with vague generalizations like “don't worry about it”, “it's probably nothing”, or “it's just the way it is, please don't touch the stunning woman standing next to you”. The sole dream of each inhabitant is to win the chance to leave this happy place to an even more wonderful place, known as “The Island”, or in the case of PARTS, “America”, a sun-drenched paradise where only a select few get to go. It's not until one of the more curious inhabitants goes digging for truth, sparked by a stray moth (Island) or a floating beer can (Parts), and uncovers the horrible truth that each and every person is merely a clone that will eventually be harvested for internal organs, limbs, skin, whatever, for needy people with staggering amounts of money kicking around, out in the “real” world. “Going to The Island” and “Going to America” are nice ways of saying that you will be killed and gutted and parts of you will be shipped out, possibly with expensive next-day shipping options and UPS tracking numbers.
Well, you can guess what happens next. The curious individual escapes and goes on a collision course with wackiness, uncovering harsh realities about his existence, and asking the audience to ponder the philosophical questions of life and humanity along the way, while trying desperately to not be distracted by Scarlett Johansson's skin-tight jumpsuit. I mean, in some of Johansson's scenes they could have had Ronald McDonald in the background pulling flaming torches out of his butt crack while beating a tambourine, and I probably wouldn't have noticed. I mean, really, the woman is a distraction, and she should need special permits to dress like that.
THE ISLAND features Ewan (young Obi-Wan) McGregor, Scarlett Johansson (as already mentioned, but her jumpsuit is worth mentioning a few more times), Sean Bean, and that guy who played Neelix on “Star Trek: Voyager”. It also features Steve Buscemi as a scrawny guy with patchy facial hair, a role he seems to excel in. The mix of both CGI and live action special effects are staggering and breathtaking, but thankfully they never seem to be the driving force of the film. The story is interesting and the effects are built upon that, never the other way around. There are a few obligatory action sequences (this IS after all, a Michael Bay film) that are dazzling, one of which seems to be ALMOST plagiarized (there is that ugly word again) straight out of “Matrix Reloaded”. The movie's pace ramps up slowly, giving the viewer an interesting story to become committed to before the CGI roller coaster of action is released.
In a nutshell, THE ISLAND is a surprisingly good film with just a very few unwieldy turds along the way, while PARTS is a poorly made film that is difficult at times to watch, which has some surprisingly good rare moments.
VERY rare moments.
These two films are not so much copies of one another, but yin and yang counterparts of themselves. Where one shines, the other fails, in almost equal measure. Both give us some philosophical ideas to chew on, and make us look at the value of human life from a unique perspective. Michael Bay harvested the best organs and limbs from PARTS, and used them to keep the body of THE ISLAND alive, and give us an under-rated and exciting film that entertains on every level it was intended to. It is a real shame, as this is director Michael Bay's lowest grossing film of all time, and in my opinion, it is easily his best effort to date. The premise may be borrowed, but the end result is a beautiful mix of thought provoking ideas and white knuckle action. Personally, I find the possibility of a futuristic society where we can merely grow a second Scarlett Johansson in a lab to be a wonderful idea. Sign me up. I'll even help!
Until next time, the balcony is condemned. Now get out there and make the most of the rest of this day, because eventually, we all go to The Island.
Your time will come.
Dr. Torgo