One of the main reasons why Michael Bay's films up until now have been regarded as such lopsided failures is because of the complaint that characterization is consistently sacrificed for the sake of breakneck editing and elaborate special effects sequences. What depth could one of his films carry if the characters were only superficial puppets (or so infamously wondered Trey Parker and Matt Stone with last year's misguided and slanderous film Team America: World Police)? Fortunately, the heroes of The Island, Bay's latest and greatest film to date, are factory-bred clones whose personalities are limited to one of twelve pre-programmed memory imprints and who have done little else in their limited lifetime but eke out a quotidian life of sterile drudgery. We're not hung up on characterization, hidden motives, or burgeoning sexual desire; we have two human beings stripped of all pretense just struggling to survive for 127 minutes. Finally, Bay has found a screenplay that compliments his talents as a filmmaker.

Lincoln Six Echo (Ewan McGregor) and Jordan Two Delta (Scarlett Johansson) are introduced as members of a select community of adult "survivors" of a future global catastrophe which has rendered the planet inhospitable save for a nearby pathogen-free island. They occupy a self-contained and sustainable habitat that is immaculately clean and efficient (urine is analyzed each time one uses the washroom, for instance) where new survivors are remarkably being found every few days while others win the opportunity to relocate to "The Island" by participating in hotly anticipated lotteries. It's a routine and tiresome existence; food is doled out cafeteria-style like medical prescriptions each morning, repetitive work is mandatory, exercise is regular, physical proximity between the sexes is strictly prohibited, and for some strange reason everyone is required to read from Dick and Jane primers. The only respite would seem to be social outings like evening dancing and public X-Box tournaments. And, of course, the hope of winning the lottery to roam free on "The Island" - to do what nobody quite knows, except to be on "The Island."

For the most part, everyone is complicit and accepts this way of life, though we have obvious concerns of our own. But some are beginning to ask questions, answering all of ours in the process. One disgruntled man - a seven-year resident of the facility - wonders why he has yet to win the lottery while a six-month resident has already won. He is more angry than ponderous, though he remains observant. Then there is Lincoln, whose growing curiosity eventually leads him to discover the perverse secret of the facility on the eve of Jordan's own trip to "The Island." Fearing for their lives, he escapes with her, thus beginning a series of revelations and self-actualizations intermittently comprised of humour, desire, integrity, ethics, and morality, and punctuated by some of the most bristling action sequences in cinemas this year.

Surely, one would expect such elaborate action from one of Bay's films, but integrity, ethics, and morality? Make no mistake - The Island is a highly contemplative film, heavily immersed in issues beyond the scope of whether it is right to clone human beings. At its core, the film is about the preciousness of life, the violence of survival, and how the two are impossible to reconcile. It is also about the attainment of utopian perfection and its disparity with human imperfection. This is where the subject of clones becomes a brilliant allegory for these Platonic divides, and Bay's knack for depicting action and violence an appropriate visual analogy for human existence. Life and survival are both cut from the same cloth yet are two distinct concepts (one is the state of existence and the other its continuation, like a human being and its clone). Just as there is no life without survival and no survival without life, each human is bound to die without clones to harvest, though clones would not exist without a host to give them life in the first place. Existence, then, is a constancy of life and death, a plight from which we cannot escape, while eternal life without death is indeed an island in our minds, which we may imagine yet never rightfully attain.

To be sure, The Island does veer toward formulaic storytelling at times, lacking originality in its execution of plot and action sequences. But given the rapturous energy of the film, such disappointments are minor and permissible. I even accept Bay's recycling of the high-speed chase from Bad Boys II where boats were hurled at oncoming cars because the similar scene in this picture (the clone?) involving giant metal barbells is better. Much of the film's other technical considerations and details were also quite impressive even if they were derivative. And given the tendency to have perhaps borrowed from the wrong sorts of sci-fi action movies, I especially appreciated the minor futuristic tweaks undertaken to create the image of 2019 Los Angeles. Like Minority Report, this film is aware that in the future many things will still more or less look like they do now.

While it may be unpopular to say so, Michael Bay has turned up a gem of a film which I am proud to champion. Because of a few blemishes on his name (Pearl Harbor, both Bad Boys films), time may regard this film as another throwaway hyperactive sci-fi action clunker. That would be a shame. The Island may be big, loud, and fast-paced, but it is philosophically so, brimming with intelligent ideas about human nature. As an anonymous graffiti artist outside the Ace & Spades bar midway through the film has crudely scrawled for passers-by on the highway to see, "Life Sucks," it would appear; however, as the film's artful and sweeping cinematography seems to evoke, there is a majesty and beauty to life worth aspiring to.

(This film was released in theatres on July 22, 2005, and is currently playing at Crystal Palace 8 Cinemas in Dieppe and Empire 8, Trinity Drive in Moncton.)