The 6th Day Review by Michael Lee

I didn't expect much from The 6th Day -- it's an Arnold Schwarzenegger film after all, and it looks like it's a revisit of sorts of Total Recall. And well, I got about what I expected. While not the worst film I've seen this year -- it's better than Mission to Mars. And it's not horrible, but it's not particularly good. It is very, very average.

Even from what little of the ad campaign I saw in advance I knew that the science in this film would be horrible. And it was. Clones in 30 seconds, with full memories? Yeah right. And your entire brain would be downloaded in a matter of minutes, and they'd be able to rewind through your memories like it was video tape. Can you do that yourself? There were so many loopholes, and I couldn't quite get past them.

What was frustrating about all of this completely unreasonable science was that the movie wanted to bring up serious bioethical issues. And that's irresponsible with the science is so bad -- when the science is so unrealistic, it discredits the ethical discussions. It's disappointing, because there are reasonable and appropriate discussions about the ethics of cloning, bio-engineering, and all of that -- but when it's set up so unreasonably, it lacks the follow through that it really needs, and it simplifies a complex issue and I'm not sure that is healthy when it comes to the very real issues of modern bio-engineering -- clones aren't going to have memories, we're not talking about bringing pets back from the dead with "repets". I don't mind bad science in fun films -- I'm less likely to complain about how clones are inevitably handled in the next Star Wars film -- but I felt that when you're trying to address issues behind the science, you have a greater responsibility in getting the science right.

Compare this with something like the X-Men, or Bladerunner -- the issues that the X-Men want you to think about aren't really about the specific mutations, which are fantastic and impossible, but on issues of prejudices based on who you are. Bladerunner has some of the same sort of identity issues -- but the science is just a bit more reasonable, and the film is fantastic about approaching those issues.

And there are some moments where the film is just plainly derivative, obviously taking movies like Total Recall with a little bit of the Matrix. (When I first saw two characters show up, one a bald black man and the other a dark haired uptown-looking woman, I rolled my eyes, and thought it was really going to go down a Matrix route.) And then it attempts in a couple of places to have that "everything you know is wrong" sort of thing, but one time it completely fails, and the other, well, what was the point?

But I suppose despite all of that, it wasn't a complete failure of a movie -- as an action piece, it was alright escapism. I wouldn't pay full evening ticket price for it -- it might be worth a second run or cable viewing, but that's about it. Every now and then it wanted to get me to engage my brain, but the film really would have been better off the less it tried to do that.

It is very average. It was described to me as craptastic after I saw the movie, and I think that's a good description.

The 6th Day

Two and a Half out of Five Beakers

Theorizing that one could time travel within his own lifetime, Michael Lee stepped into the MISFITS Website and vanished .... He woke to find himself trapped on the Internet, facing pages that were not his own and driven by an unknown force to change the MISFITS Website for the better. His only guide on this journey is Professor Maxwell Misfittle, an observer from his own time, who appears in the form of a hologram that only Mike can see and hear. And so Mr. Lee finds himself leaping from site to site, striving to put right what once went wrong and hoping each time that his next leap will be the leap home. Michael previously wrote a review of To Say Nothing of the Dog.

It is very average.