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Today, I finally proved to Pat that not all the movies I pick suck. Okay, it’s true that I do have a bad history of choosing crappy movies at a whim, such as Dead People–some “horror” movie from New Zealand where nothing happened–and Kingdom of Heaven, which went absolutely nowhere. But today I was triumphant when I said that The Island would be worth watching! One point for me.

For those of you who haven’t seen the trailer, The Island is about a society in a total institution set in 2019. When I say “total institution” I mean (a term I stole from my Sociology book to make me sound smart and clever) that every sphere of social life is supervised and standardized. Er, in other words, think Lois Lowry’s The Giver. All the people in this society cling their hopes onto one dream, and that dream is to be chosen to go to the island, the only remaining paradise in a world that has been destroyed by a contamination. But then one guy (Ewan McGregor) discovers that there is no such thing as an island after all, and all hell breaks loose.

Okay, the truth is, I wanted to see The Island for Scarlett Johansonn, who I think is a total screen goddess. I know she doesn’t do any blockbuster films, and which made me very adamant about seeing this in spite of my low expectations and Pat’s objections. As I had just mentioned, the movie’s premise sounds a lot like that of The Giver’s, and I already braced myself for the trite message about how the individual should question the society he lives in and the systems that control him, blah blah blah. But unlike The Giver, which ends with the protagonist escaping the community, there is an exciting and unexpected twist to The Island’s plot, which I shall not reveal because I am a nice person (unlike everyone who gave spoilers to that Harry Potter book). Then a lot of car-chasing, shooty-shooty action happens, which I intitially thought was useless but later on realized that it helped emphasize how badly these two people wanted to live.

Overall, I thought the whole story was well-done and intelligent but at the same time, it doesn’t needlessly fuck with your mind with so-called “philosophical insights”, “moral dilemmas”, and “societal issues”. Even the technical aspect impressed me a lot–I loved the camera shots and the soundtrack, and yes, Scarlett Johannson’s performance was wonderful. I actually didn’t spot any faults, but that’s all right since I never watch movies to pick on it. This is actually how I think every movie should be treated. Just go watch The Island to have a great time, unless you’re an actual bigot who thinks that everything has to be meaningful and scientifically-accurate because you’re just so deep like that. Then you probably won’t like it.