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Poll

After reading Adam & Sam's warning about The Island, did you change your mind about seeing this film? (read this post before answering)

Yes
2 (28.6%)
No
4 (57.1%)
Michael Bay is the next Orson Welles!  Cursor, you're way off base.
1 (14.3%)

Total Members Voted: 7

Voting closed: July 21, 2005, 09:44:39 AM

Author Topic: Adam & Sam don't want to visit The Island  (Read 3312 times)

cursor

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Adam & Sam don't want to visit The Island
« on: July 21, 2005, 09:44:39 AM »
OK.  So I really liked the trailer to this film.  It looks like a pretty interesting, if somewhat derivative scifi film.  The cast is chock full of excellent actors:
Quote
Ewan McGregor ....  Lincoln Six Echo/Tom Lincoln
Scarlett Johansson ....  Jordan Two Delta/Sarah Jordan
Steve Buscemi ....  McCord

But so I got to looking a bit deeper at it after Sam and Adam said they think it'll be a dog.  I visited the website and looked at this trailer:

http://www.theisland-themovie.com/trailer/international_1.html

Note that at 1:17 through this thing, the trailer says in big bold letters:
Quote
DIRECTOR OF
PEARL HARBOR
AND
ARMAGEDDON

Um...  This is supposed to sell me on the film?  And then a light bulb goes off in my head.  Hey--wait a minute!--I've been duped by this Michael Bay character not once, but TWICE before.  Armageddon was quite possibly the worst movie that I've ever seen.  Pearl Harbor made me empathize with the frickin' Imperial Japanese--I mean who wouldn't want to kill Ben Afleck in that turkey?  And this guy can make a trailer that gets me to go see the movie.  What do they say...  Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me, fool me three times and you're Michael Bay.

And so, I went to IMDB to do a bit more detective work.  If I were to go to this film here is a sampling of the dialogue I'd be subjected to:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0399201/quotes
Quote
I just want to live. I don't care how.
I'm sorry, I'm not ready to die!
I wanna live! I don't wanna die!
That tongue thing is amazing!

The screenplay seems to come from some unknown Germans and a guy whose main film credit is The Goonies II.  Anyhow here is the credit:
Quote
Caspian Tredwell-Owen (story) Alex Kurtzman (screenplay) & Roberto Orci   (screenplay) and Caspian Tredwell-Owen (screenplay),

So I go to look at this Michael Bay character:
Quote
Untitled Transformers Film (2007) (pre-production)
The Island (2005)
Bad Boys II (2003)
... aka Good Cops: Bad Boys II (Malaysia: English title)
Pearl Harbor (2001)
... aka Pearl Harbour (UK: promotional title)
Armageddon (1998)
The Rock (1996)
Bad Boys (1995)

The Transformers?  The Bad Boys franchise?  With that resume, something tells me that Michael Bay is to good film as Fox News is to good journalism.  

Um.  OK guys, I admit it--I voted for this turkey in your poll on the front page.  It seems that you know better than I do what I want to see.  

Thank you!

silverjman

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Hustle and Flow
« Reply #1 on: July 21, 2005, 01:46:43 PM »
Pleease!! are you are you kidding you would have to pay at least $20 to sit through that.  The kid form Road Trip is a serious role.  The "size of the dog blah blah fight in the dog" who was the linguistic genius who thought to run that tried a@# line out, and then put it in the trailer in an attempt to put their best foot forward.  The girl who gets her voice produced the heck out of so it sounds presentable.  I like Ewan McGregor and Scarlet, and The Island does look absolutely horrible but Hustle and Flow,  man!  Will it make money, yeah

Magess

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Adam & Sam don't want to visit The Island
« Reply #2 on: July 21, 2005, 03:12:34 PM »
I think I rather had the idea that The Island would be stuff blowing crap from the start. But, you know, sometimes I like stuff blowing up. Certainly there's a place for deep affecting cinema. Sometimes explosions are cool.

The problem, really, is that it costs $10. Do I want to spend $10? I could just wait 2 months and rent it from netflix. But huge explosions aren't quite so huge at home, so I might lose the essential element.

BrandyLuck

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Adam & Sam don't want to visit The Island
« Reply #3 on: September 12, 2005, 08:41:28 PM »
I acquiesced to seeing The Island because it was really friggin' hot here and I wanted to sit in the AC. I had wanted to see it b/c I liked so many of the actors. Then I heard it panned. The AC got my butt in the seat for a matinee.

Ya know, I liked it. Interesting premise. Nix 45 minutes of shattering glass nonsense, it wouldn't be half bad.

gateway

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Adam & Sam don't want to visit The Island
« Reply #4 on: September 13, 2005, 08:26:30 PM »
I'm actually thinking about renting The Island, but it will probably be for a weekend of critically-panned movie watching. Sometimes it's fun to just watch a bunch of really bad movies, and The Island is one of my top candidates from this summer.
"I hope someday to be rich enough to smoke giant cigars while cackling maniacally."
- Nathan Rabin (echoing my thoughts exactly)

walshy

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Adam & Sam don't want to visit The Island
« Reply #5 on: September 14, 2005, 09:13:25 AM »
Quote
I'm actually thinking about renting The Island, but it will probably be for a weekend of critically-panned movie watching. Sometimes it's fun to just watch a bunch of really bad movies, and The Island is one of my top candidates from this summer.


Unfortunately, this isn't bad enough the whole way through to enjoy in a 'so bad it's good' way. It's almost(!) promising in the first half, before making the inevitable descent into pointless action movie mode. I think it was the eighth car in a row flipping and rotating in mid-air (and slow motion - of course!) down the freeway for no apparent reason that pushed it over the edge.

It's funny though that in Australia, it made a reasonable amount of money compared to the USA - equivalent to about $60m - maybe we're masochists or something.

gateway

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Adam & Sam don't want to visit The Island
« Reply #6 on: September 14, 2005, 10:27:31 PM »
Quote from: "cinebuffwannabe"


Unfortunately, this isn't bad enough the whole way through to enjoy in a 'so bad it's good' way. It's almost(!) promising in the first half, before making the inevitable descent into pointless action movie mode. I think it was the eighth car in a row flipping and rotating in mid-air (and slow motion - of course!) down the freeway for no apparent reason that pushed it over the edge.

It's funny though that in Australia, it made a reasonable amount of money compared to the USA - equivalent to about $60m - maybe we're masochists or something.


From what I heard, it did fairly well through out most of the world. North America seemed to be the only region where it flopped, or at least flopped as badly as it did. But it never reaches that "so bad it's comical" level though, you say? Unfortunate.
"I hope someday to be rich enough to smoke giant cigars while cackling maniacally."
- Nathan Rabin (echoing my thoughts exactly)