Big budgets, small thrills

Say what you will about Michael Bay, the man makes some handsome movies. His career kick-started in admirable fashion with the one-two punch of "Bad Boys" and "The Rock" (two of the 1990's better, albeit dumber, action flicks), before segueing into the astronomically asinine "Armageddon" and epically inane "Pearl Harbor" (again, two pictures I actually dig if for no other reason than their substantial stylistic sheen). Bay's last effort was a sequel to his first -- "Bad Boys II." This is arguably the best of Bay's oeuvre as it so wholeheartedly embraces the elements critics loathe in his works. The picture is crass, nationalistic, homophobic, racist, sexist and "overly-" a whole bunch of things -- loud, long, violent, etc. It's excess not seen since the '80s, but in the cloyingly PC present it serves as a breath of fresh air. Now comes "The Island," Bay's first foray into sci-fi, made without mega-bucks producer Jerry Bruckheimer.\nEwan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson star as Lincoln Six Echo and Jordan Two Delta, respectively. Unbeknownst to either of them, they are clones of some rich and/or famous people. Stationed in a retooled underground former military base, Lincoln, Jordan and the thousands like them are harvested for any spare parts their owners on the outside might need. Whether it be surrogate pregnancy to avoid stretch marks or a desperately needed organ transplant, clones are removed from the facility under the pretenses of a faux-lottery rewarding lifelong trips to a mythic island paradise. Everyone buys naively into the promised paradise ... everyone that is but Lincoln. He and Jordan, with the assistance of an outside maintenance man (the irreplaceable yet underused Steve Buscemi), escape the compound looking for answers. Amid their fleeing, the duo is pursued by Merrick (Sean Bean ... once again playing a bastard), the doctor with a God complex responsible for this ethical abomination. He has hired mercenary Albert Laurent (Djimon Hounsou, doing the best he can with a miswritten role) to do the dirty work for him.\nWhat began as a solemn sci-fi flick chockablock with contemporary appeal (stem cell research/cloning, anyone?) quickly degenerates into a prolonged chase sequence replete with "Star Wars"-esque Land Speeders and futuristic Cadillacs. It's almost as if "THX-1138" merged with "Minority Report" under the direction of Bay. The movie's two halves, while entertaining, don't add up to a cohesive whole and provide an anti-climactic conclusion. Bay seems to be striving for smarts. Sadly, stupidity suits him better.