Day 95: The Island

Ok, so the picture isn’t technically from the film but there were just too many pictures of Ewan McGregor and not enough of Scarlett Johansson to choose from. My rules.

Curiosity leads to a hell of a lot of explosions. When Lincoln Six Echo (Ewan McGregor) has some questions about the facility where he lives, it leads him to discover that he and the other residents of the facility are clones who are being harvested for their organs. Pretty grim but he rallies like a champ and teams up with Jordan Two Delta (Scarlett Johansson) to escape and make people aware of what is going on.

There is so much running in this film. I mean, I was exhausted just watching them. And explosions all over the shop, but it is a Michael Bay film so that is expected. Some of the fighting scenes I could believe in, y’know, they might’ve happened. But then there’s the bit when Lincoln and Jordan are on the side of the building 70 floors up and they fall off and survive. Wouldn’t have happened. I know it’s a film about cloned people yaddayadda, but you’ve got to keep parts of it believable. Loved the fighting though. Pretty much all of my notes centre around how much of a badass Scarlett is. I’m not even sure what the notes refer to since all I wrote was “Oh my, such a badass” (and other variations along that line) but I’m sure the scenes were great.

I’m not really sure what would happen at the end. All the other clones escape the facility and it’s all pretty dramatic with them running about. But what happens next? Do they just chill with their originals? When the doctor was explaining, he said something about them being like children, so what would they do in the world? Although saying that, he did also say that they removed the sex instinct and that clearly didn’t work considering Lincoln and Jordan violate the proximity rules, if you know what I mean. I don’t know, would quite like to know what they did after they escaped. Probably had lots of sex.

6/10 

Day 49: The Field

Happy birthday, Simon! I’m sure there is no greater present than the knowledge that I watched your pick on this day.

Bull McCabe (Richard Harris) has spent his life caring for a field and he wants to keep it in the family to pass on to his son, Tadgh (Sean Bean). However, the owner wants to sell and she’s not particularly keen on Bull owning it so she sets the minimum price at £100 (which she thinks he will never be able to get together) and waits for it to pass on to someone else. That someone else wouldn’t exist normally because nobody in that little village would dare go against Bull but along comes an American with no consideration for village folk and their love of land and he tries to buy it out from under him. Bull and that field cannot be separated so he takes drastic measures to ensure it stays with him.

At the start of the film you see father and son working hard and enjoying themselves as much as you can when you’re working in a field. There is little in the way of talking for quite a while so I had to content myself with the fact that we’ve got Dumbledore, Boromir, and the homeless pigeon lady from Home Alone 2 all present. I can’t even explain how or why I was so excited to see the homeless pigeon lady but it might have had something to do with it being the only thing happening in the film for a long time. But then someone shouts just the best line, in such a way that it could only be shouted sincerely by crazy village folk: “THEY MURDERED YOUR FATHER’S DONKEEEY.” The best.

Despite the fact I could only understand every other sentence (I’m not good with Irish, or old people who mumble all the time), it was watchable. Richard Harris was brilliant, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him as anyone other than Dumbledore but he is a great actor. Sean Bean, your acting is so weird in this film I can’t even explain it, and you die again! I’ve never seen a film where you survive the whole way through. This is such an old man film. I don’t mean that as a criticism but it is just dripping with it. It was ok, I liked Bull’s gradual mental decline but I’m not too interested in old people fighting for a field. I know it was about family and all that but killing people for what is essentially just a field just doesn’t compute with my brain.

6/10