Review Detail

I've always had a soft spot for The Island just for its "Logan's Run" style throwback Sci-Fi premise alone. Add to that Johansson and McGregor in their primes, and this is a lot of gorgeous Michael Bay eye candy. The fanedit maintains a lot of that visual impressiveness despite the age and file size, though ultimately the story editing falls apart literally at the last minute.

Aside from some typical over-the-top Bay action scenes that I wish had been trimmed down to make this at least slightly more plausible, there are really just two narrative choices here that hold this edit back for me. The first is a minor trim, but really a huge part of the story is these two characters' attraction for each other, despite every system put in place to keep them apart. UncannyAntman tries to cut out some of the sexual references and the love scene, but this stuff is still all over the movie and it's actually important character growth for them to be "like real humans".

Secondly, and more importantly, the ending wraps up all in a rush, cutting out any explanation or justification for how "Echo's" actions would save anyone. (SPOILERS) but the film has said that everyone believes outside is contaminated...so why would they all rush outside? The film has said that these clones are worth millions of dollars each, so how are we to believe that a whole corporation will just let them go because a roof opened up? They're still out in the middle of nowhere with no witnesses and military guys all around. Echo didn't solve anything as far as this edit shows, in fact, he still has at least 100 people actively looking for him, and no way back out of the desert! The edit just skips from "I made a big hole" to "everyone forgot about us and we somehow got back out on the murdered man's boat and yadda yadda Happily Ever After".

In short, you can't set up bad guys to chase after the good guy with everything they've got, then cut out what happens to them and expect the audience to think they just gave up. As dumb as Bay's original script might have been, there was at least some effort to explain this. In the current edit, continuity is fixed early on, there are some smart narrative adjustments, but ultimately it's still a dumb, glossy chase film...only missing some of its sexy gloss. And missing an ending.