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In many ways, The Island is a silly movie: Long, repetitive, boring chase scenes, inexplicable explosions, impossible escapes, gaping holes in the plot, all filmed with MTV quick-cuts and apparently lit with strobe lights. Somewhere on the far side of the silliness, however, is a welcome indictment of the dehumanization and outright murder involved in genetic manipulation, cloning, and other biotechnologies.
Remarkably, the film hits a number of key prolife themes. The connection between slavery and bioethics is hammered from various directions: Ewan McGregor plays the clone of Tom Lincoln, the Moses-Christ figure who harrows hell and emancipates the clones at the close of the movie (but to where?? there is no promised land), and Djimon Hounsou is Albert Laurent, an African head of a private security agency who comes to see his own experience mirrored in that of the clones.
The cloning operation is presented as idolatrous hubris. In one of the few overtly religious references in the movie, the villainous Dr. Merrick (Sean Bean) is defending himself to Laurent. "When did killing become a business for you?" Laurent asks, to which Merrick answers "I don't kill. I give life. I can cure childhood leukemia. How many people can say that?" "Only you and God," Laurent answers. "That's the answer you were looking for, wasn't it?"
Yes, that's exactly the answer.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, December 18, 2005 at 07:43 AM
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