My review of The Island — the first Michael Bay action flick to be produced without Jerry Bruckheimer — will be up on Friday. In the meantime, check out this interesting paragraph from The Hollywood Reporter‘s review, by Kirk Honeycutt:
What’s troubling from a political point of view is that these filmmakers have, perhaps unwittingly, delivered a film certain to give succor to the religious right. In this ethical horror story, scientists experimenting with human genetics to advance medicine and cure illness are cast as Dr. Frankenstein villains. The chief villain, Dr. Merrick (Sean Bean), mouths platitudes about curing leukemia but clearly has greed in his heart.
I think it’s a little more complicated than this — Merrick’s corporation also happens to be breaking ethics laws, which might appeal to those of a more left-ish bent, plus the story has Gnostic overtones that could be read as a criticism of conservative religious patterns — but it’s still an intriguing remark. It’s always interesting to see what sorts of political assumptions mainstream film critics are allowed to make when writing their reviews.
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