Review: The 6th Day (2000)
Ram Samudrala
The 6th Day
http://www.ram.org/ramblings/movies/the_6th_day.html
Human genetic engineering is inevitable: given the prevalence of both
infectious and inherited diseases, it's either allowing germ-line gene
therapy (which is currently illegal) or having a bottleneck population
prone with defective genes. (With it, of course, comes also the
ability to alter other traits.) Human cloning (which doesn't even
really require an understanding of the human genome) may also well be
inevitable, but most people misunderstand what genetic cloning is all
about: we current probably have the technological means to clone
humans currently, but that's akin to creating a twin (who will be
significantly younger, directly proportional to one's age). It is
beyond our technological capabilities to grow the clone at such a
rapid rate that the physical aging is the same, and also to transfer
all our memories (i.e., the complex network of interactions that
comprises the "mind") into such a clone.
That's the kind of cloning that occurs in /The 6th Day/, Arnold
Schwarzenegger's new thriller and one of the best action movies I've
seen in a long time. The title is based on the law (and a reference
to god creating man on the sixth day) that bans human cloning after a
disastrous experiment (which you can expect with the first attempts at
human genetic engineering or cloning). But a failed experiment
doesn't stop Drucker (Tony Goldwyn) and Weir (Robert Duvall) from
going ahead and perfecting their methods, and soon enough, not only
are they able to produce cloned "blanks" that are phenotypically
similar to the people whose genetic material is their blueprint, but
whose memories can also be programmed. Drucker and Weir use an
organ-replacement mega-corporation as the cover for their god-like
ambitions of allowing people (they particularly care about) to live
perpetually.
When Drucker is killed by an anti-cloning activist on an adventure
outing, his clone takes over (this isn't the first time). Since he
believes Adam Gibson (Schwarzenegger) and his co-pilot Hank (Michael
Rapaport) were killed with him, they're also "restored" through their
clones. But what Drucker doesn't realise is that Adam opted out of the
helicopter flight at the last minute and went about his life as usual
resulting in a situation with two Adam Gibsons. The newly cloned Adam
returns home to find the original and mayhem ensues as the clone sets
out uncovering the truth, threatening Drucker's empire.
At this point, the movie becomes a straight-forward action film
featuring two Schwarzeneggers both fighting to save their own lives
and the lives of those they love from Drucker and his henchmen (who
are virtually indestructible since their clones keep coming back).
The action is standard Arnold-fare and is a delight to watch. Nothing
he does is really that over-the-top and is more in the /Terminator/
and /Total Recall/ vein (as opposed to the /The Matrix/ and /Mission:
Impossible/ kind).
The acting is pretty good: Schwarzenegger tough-guy role is clearly
carrying the film but he gets to use his comedic talents to generate
humour effectively. It's amusing to me that Schwarzenegger as an actor
has clearly become so Americanised but yet his trademark accent is
still prominent. The actors playing all the villains, particularly
Tony Goldwyn, are pretty good also.
/The 6th Day/ takes its time initially outlining what the immediate
future has in store for us: remote controlled helicopters, intelligent
kitchen appliances, virtual holograms that satisfy your every need,
and pets that can be replaced through cloning. As I say above, the
kind of cloning depicted is quite far beyond us, primarily because
"reprogramming" the brain is non-trivial due to its complexity. Yet
cloning of tissue and genetic engineering of offspring is possible.
The movie uses a device called a "syncorder" to explain the memory
transfer, but does nothing to explain how the full-mature "blanks" are
produced.
The basic premise of the film, the idea of death being something that
one must fear and must try to get around at all costs, is something I
can't really relate to. This is a view that pervades our society, but
yet without death there is no life, and there's always something that
"lives on" (in other words, there is nothing to fear).
/The 6th Day/ is both a fun and thought-provoking film, eye as well as
mind candy. Worth the full price of admission.
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Laura Clifford
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The latest Schwarzenegger sci-fi actioner is a derivative middle-of-the-road
effort that's entertaining enough while you're watching it, but dissolves
from the memory as you exit the theater.
Arnie is Adam Gibson (a tribute to "Neuromancer" author William Gibson?),
a family guy with a sexy marriage (Wendy Crewson, "Bicentennial Man" is
wife Natalie), preteen daughter and dog Oliver. He owns a helicopter charter
business with his younger partner Hank (Michael Rapaport, thoroughly wasted
here). After Hank poses as Adam to take the wealthy owner of Replacement
Technologies (Tony Goldwyn as Drucker), Adam returns home to find a clone
celebrating his birthday and two thugs (who seem right out of "The Matrix")
intent on killing him.
Adam is established as an old fashioned kind of guy when he refuses to go
to RePet, a pet cloning business, when Oliver dies. (He also owns a
vintage Cadillac.) The script, by husband and wife team Marianne and Cormac
Wibberley, explains that in this futuristic society, there are laws against
cloning humans because of the complexity of the human brain (and the one known
experiment which went tragically wrong). Replacement Technologies, which
owns RePet, is publically in the human part replacement business, but
privately of course they're cloning people, via the research of Dr. Weir
(Robert Duvall), who's trying to keep his dying wife alive. The film's title
refers to the Genesis passage about the creation of man. Unfortunately, the
script botches its main mystery when attempting to explain why Adam Gibson
was cloned.
Arnold is no great actor, but gets by here on his likeability. Goldwyn's an
interesting bad guy, Australian actress Sarah Wynter ("Species 2") does a
good Linda Fiorentino standin and Crewson injects some personality into
the wife role. The rest of the cast, which includes Duvall, Rapaport, and
Michael Rooker, is unexceptional.
Technically, the film provides a lot of razzle dazzle eye candy, like
remote controlled helicopter races, dolls that simulate children and the
'blanks' waiting to be cloned. However, the film's visuals constantly
remind us of other films like "Blade Runner," "Demolition Man" and Arnie's
own "True Lies." The film's script even borrows the main premise of "The
Sixth Sense." Director Roger Spottiswoode ("Tomorrow Never Dies") allows
his film to run for an excessive 124 minutes.
"The 6th Day" may be better than Arnold's last effort ("End of Days"),
but I doubt it will last many days during the crowded holiday movie season.
C+
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Robin Clifford
What does the future hold for us? Genetic engineering could eliminate world
hunger, cure disease, and remove the threat of extinction and stock the
medical labs with cloned organs for transplant. It could also open the
Pandora's box of mankind's most elusive desire - immortality.
Adam Gibson (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is and old-fashioned family man with a
happy and loving little clan of wife, Natalie (Wendy Crewson), and
daughter, Clara (Taylor Anne Reid). He comes home one night brandishing a
surprise gift for Clara, only to find his place taken by an exact duplicate
of himself. His perfect life wrenched away, Adam is plunged into a sinister
world of murder, corruption and high tech skullduggery in a tale about the
dangers of cloning, "The 6th Day."
Deriving its title from the bible - "and God created man on the sixth day"
- this latest Arnold flick utilizes a very hip and controversial subject,
cloning, as its high-tech draw. And a rather cool one it is. "The 6th Day"
begins with true and fictional reports of the progress of cloning from the
first success, Dolly the sheep, through the failed attempts at human
cloning and the eventual banning of the process if it involves people. This
future world does accept the simpler aspects of the technology, though,
with such specialized companies like RePet, Nu Salmon and Real Grain. These
new companies can recreate your beloved, but dead, pet, or fresh food for
your table. A lucrative industry in creating spare body parts has sprung
up, too. But, because of the ban, whole body cloning is definitely a no-no.
Enter our hero, Adam Gibson. Adam is an adoring husband and father who
leaves the house on his birthday not suspecting that a sinister plot is
about to change his life. He and his partner, Hank (Michael Rapaport), have
a lucrative helicopter business, Double X Charters, which ferries
snowboarders up into the mountains to ski. Hank convinces Adam to take his
special day off and the younger man takes the charter of a wealthy genetics
tycoon, Michael Drucker (Tony Goldwyn). The impact of this fateful decision
is made vivid to Adam only hours later.
Arriving at home with a new life-size talking doll, SimPal Cindy, for his
daughter, Adam is confronted by an unbelievable site. Hearing everyone
singing "Happy Birthday," he looks in the window to see himself and his
family celebrating his birthday. Two thugs arrive on the scene to take Adam
away, telling him that there has been a "sixth day violation," that he was
erroneously cloned and that, should his family find out, they will all be
killed. Adam must face the powerful, greedy corporation, led by Drucker,
which stole his life and fight to get it back.
"The 6th Day" moves, despite the high-tech, sci-fi premise, along a
well-traveled road about one innocent man pitted against a corrupt, evil
system. Here, the cloning technology has advanced to the point where
immortality is within the grasp of man, but society has deemed such an
advance as too dangerous. Arnold, as the muscular everyman Adam Gibson, is
thrust into a world of duality as our hero is brought to question his own
existence, his own reality in this world. Is the Adam who is fighting so
hard for his life and family truly being persecuted or is he merely a clone
remembering a life not his? And, if he does remember another's life as his
own, isn't, then, truly his?
All of this is a really good premise for a movie and, if it weren't
burdened with a former action megastar who wants to return to his former
glory, there may have been a good movie here. Instead, we see Arnold in
transition. The former Mr. Universe has been through some major heart
surgery and you can see that he just can't do what he used to in his films
like "Predator" and the "Terminator" franchise. Now, Arnie has to do more
thesping and less butt kicking and he is simply not up to the task. When he
is playing the loving husband and father opposite Crewson and Reid, it made
me want to cry - but, not from emotion for the scenes! With all the
millions Arnold has made from his flicks over all these years, he couldn't
have invested in a few acting lessons, maybe.
Given an actor in the lead role, I think that, with everything else
associated with "The 6th Day," there could have been a good sci-fi actioner
here. As it is, the supporting cast - with Tony Goldwyn as the greedy
high-tech entrepreneur, Michael Rooker as his chief henchman, and Robert
Duval as the well meaning mad scientist - is left to hang in the breeze
with nothing to anchor on to. The F/X showing the brain drain process that
makes cloning possible reminded me of the 1980 Ken Russell film, "Altered
States," and doesn't cover any new ground.
At a little over two hours long I thought that "The 6th Day" could have
easily lost 30 minutes and have been a better movie. Losing Arnold would
have been another good move. I give it a C-.
For more Reeling reviews visit www.reelingreviews.com
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Steve Kong
Review by Steve Kong
The Hard Boiled Movie Guide
http://boiledmovies.sbay.com/
Let me first say that The 6th Day is better than Arnie's last film End of
Days. But, that's not saying too much since End of Days was so
terrible. We are entering in to the era of neo-Arnie a softer and gentler
Arnie who makes movies that are no longer rated R, but are rated
PG-13. The 6th Day has one huge failing and is rescued by one great
idea. More on this later.
In The 6th Day we follow the life of ordinary guy Adam Gibson (Arnold
Schwarzenegger). He's a helicopter pilot with a pretty ordinary life with
a wife, daughter, and even a cute dog. On his birthday he decides to
switch off a job with his work partner Hank. Hank is killed during the job
and Adam comes home to find someone who looks interestingly just like
him this person is living in his house, acting like him, playing with his
child, and even having sex with his wife. Well, in any other movie a
mind-over-anger approach would have taken place. But, come on! This is an
Arnie film and all hell breaks loose, as there are two Arnies on screen.
In the near future and we're told the not so far away future by the
opening titles cloning of pets has been perfected and though humans have
been cloned, it is outlawed. The master-cloning doctor is a brilliant man
named Dr. Weir (Robert Duvall) and he has a scheming business partner named
Drucker (Tony Goldwyn). Well, like in real life, laws are made to be
broken and Adam has been cloned and now that there are two of them in the
world, one of them has to be eliminated to eliminate the evidence of
illegal cloning.
The story for The 6th Day is not deep, this is an action film, but the
issues brought up in the film are great! The cloning process basically
reproduces an exact clone of a person within two hours. What does this
mean really? It means that a person can live forever. A snapshot of a
person's mind at a moment of time (called a "syncording") and a sample of
the person's DNA is all that is needed to create a perfect clone. This
clone doesn't even know that he is a clone. The issue of cloning is quite
real in today's world and the film does bring up some of these interesting
issues. It is because of this that the film survives, it is able to infuse
enough action to please the audience and also put in something for the
audience to think about after the film.
Where the film fails, but not failing hard enough for me to not like the
film, is in its tone and setting. See, the opening titles try to scare us
by saying that what we are going to see is the near future. But, it goes
on specifically to let us know that this is not too far away from now. And
if the film had stuck to this then it would have been a brilliant
film what I mean is if the film had put the characters in a world that is
not far different than our world right now, it would have helped put the
audience closer to what is happening on screen and what is at the core of
the film, the question of cloning. What director Roger Spottiswoode
("Tomorrow Never Dies") does though is tell us one thing and then show us
another he puts us in a world where helicopters can transform into jet
planes, where instead of ammo firing guns there are laser guns, and
holographic displays for football games. With these things he's just put
us not in the near future, but way "out there". And but doing that the
points and issues brought up by the film do not him home well enough. Also
the suspension of disbelief is now greater since we now have to believe
that cloning technology is perfected to the point where a human can be
cloned in two hours plus that there are helicopters that can turn into jet
planes and that there are laser guns. I think Spottiswoode seriously
dropped the ball here. He should have said that it was in the not so
distant future then set it up just like that, it would have made the film's
depiction of the cloning much more frightening.
Lets not forget though that this is an action film and there is action in
the film. Like Spottiswoode previous action film Tomorrow Never Dies, the
action is pretty flat in this film. Spottiswoode does not know how to do
action well. The action is flat and at times yawn inducing. A car chase
is shot early on in the film and that was a dud. The laser gun fights
were, well, laser gun fights that looked as exciting as some cutting room
floor stuff from the original Star Wars film. It's enough action to carry
the film along, but it sure isn't exciting enough to carry the film by
itself thank goodness for the good core ideas about cloning.
The actors seem to do what they can with the film. Arnie is Arnie. This
isn't one of his best performances. It also isn't one of his worst. He is
serviceable and likeable on screen. I wish Arnie would return to the
classic style Arnie and make movies like T2, Total Recall, or even
something like Predator. Neo-Arnie is a little too soft for my
tastes. Worth mentioning is actress Sara Wynter as Talia. Talia is one of
the agents working for Drucker's corporation trying to eliminate
Adam. Wynter is does pretty well with her part and it was always
entertaining to see her on screen.
The 6th Day is an average movie that eludes my recommendation for a big
screen showing at full price. But, if you see it at a cheap matinee or on
video it will be a decent flick to see. The ideas brought up about cloning
are good conversation items and it is nice to see Arnie back on the screen
doing something better than that hellacious (pun intended) End of Days.
--
Homer Yen
Fun
by Homer Yen
(c) 2000
Imagine the following fascinating but profoundly
challenging ethical issues surrounding the topic of
cloning.
* World population explodes to such an extent that
food levels decrease to dangerously low levels. By
cloning fish and livestock, however, new food supplies
could be easily reintroduced into the food system to
eradicate any future shortages.
* Your precious 10-year old daughter would be
heartbroken if she found out that her adorable pet
pooch has gone to Heaven. To save her from the pain
and yourself from the excruciating task of explaining
to her what happened, you visit a business at the
local mall that specializes in cloning pets. Within
two hours, Rover is 'resurrected'. Your daughter
never knows the difference and life goes on.
* Deion Sanders, a talented football player acquired
by our Washington Redskins for an ungodly sum of money
to help ensure a championship season, suffers what
seems to be a career-ending injury. With that, the
hopes of winning the Super Bowl and the $50+ million
investment die. Miraculously, Deion appears in the
next game looking as if nothing had happened. The
pursuit of the coveted Super Bowl championship
continues and all seems normal.
These are all compelling quandaries regarding the
future of Man and would certainly make for an
interesting sci-fi yarn. However, despite the fact
that "The 6th Day" is layered with philosophical
undertones, the moral issues are much more compelling
than the film itself.
Starring a somewhat subdued Arnold Schwarzenegger,
this moderately entertaining science fiction/action
adventure film takes place in the "not too distant
future and sooner than we think." Science and
technology has advanced to a point that the lines
between reality and artificiality are becoming
increasingly blurred. Virtual girlfriends are
becoming as acceptable as the real thing. SimPals
(lifelike but eerily ugly dolls) are the hottest
holiday toy. Meanwhile, there is heated debate that
rages over the legitimacy of human cloning. Although
it is currently banned under law, a greedy
businessman, Michael Drucker (Tony Goldwyn), wants to
have the laws overturned.
Our hero, Adam (Schwarzenegger) gets caught up in a
bizarre and dangerous situation when he learns that
he's been cloned. Wait…perhaps he's the clone and the
other guy is real. It's another absorbing question.
But no matter how interesting this film could've been,
the basic DNA of any Schwarzenegger film sacrifices
ingenuity for eye candy and a bit of action. You can
expect several gunfights that make it look like a sort
of revved up commercial for Laser Tag. There are some
cool sci-fi effects that will surely please the
men-who-love-cool-gadgets population. And, there are
some pretty good performances. Of note is Michael
Rappaport as one of Drucker's henchman, and there is a
tender turn from Wanda Cannon who plays the dying wife
of a key scientist within Drucker's firm.
But where "The 6th Day" goes awry is that it is
basically a toned down version of the typical
Schwarzenegger movie. It doesn't have over-the-top
action sequences, the violence level is somewhat
subdued (although there is one graphic scene), and our
hero even displays an uneasy gushiness. It's even
rated PG-13. Perhaps seeing so many of his other
cartoonish but action-packed films have caused me to
consider this project a step in the wrong direction.
While it tries to be more than just a mindless action
flick, the movie doesn't really have anything to get
excited about. You'll walk out of the theatre
thinking that you saw a preview for Playstation 3.
Grade: C
S: 1 out of 3
L: 2 out of 3
V: 2 out of 3
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