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CORRIDOR
OF HORROR |
DARK CORRIDORS VOL. 1, NO. 26 |
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reviews The new sci-fi thriller starring Arnold Schwarzenegger |
Arnie steps up from the low ebb
of his 'End of Days' disaster
By
JOHN STANLEY
of TheColumnists.com
BACK IN the days when "DNA" was nothing more than "AND" spelled backwards, and the phrase "genetic code" would have baffled cryptographers in any nation of the world, a brilliant science-fiction writer named Ray Bradbury wrote a series of short stories about "Marionettes, Inc.," a clandestine, very discreet corporation that produced clones for its clientele.
In one memorable story, a drab workaday fella asked the company to create a humanoid in his likeness, in an effort to substitute the clone for himself, so he could escape his shrewish wife and enjoy himself elsewhere in the evenings. Catching the clone in a passionate embrace with his wife, the drab guy suddenly realized things weren't working out quite the way he had thought, and he soon met a startling demise in a twist ending that would have made O. Henry beam with pride. A cautionary tale about the dangers of tomorrow's science.
I mention Mr. Bradbury because I just saw Arnold Schwarzenegger's latest film "The 6th Day," and instantly realized where screenwriters Cormac and Marianne Wibberley got the idea for their movie. I'm always amazed at how much of our pop culture is connected to something someone wrote or filmed long ago, and I like to give credit where it's due, especially since Bradbury predicted the coming of Dolly the sheep and the art of duplicating human beings--complicated ideas hidden away beneath the simplistic veneer of his short stores of the 1940s and '50s.
Of course, the similarities end there and modern movie sensibilities and hardened sensitivities kick in and take over. Yeah, it's part of Hollywood's neverending search for the blockbuster flick that will gross out audiences over a three-day weekend and gross out the producers with giant grosses. Alas, "The 6th Day" performed only mediocrely on its debut weekend, indicating that maybe audiences are still getting over the shock and schlock of Schwarzenegger's 1999 disaster "End of Days," and maybe the name Schwarzenegger is not the moviegoing attractor it was back in the days of "Total Recall" or "The Terminator."
"The 6th Day" is a slambam, rousing action movie of the "Total Recall" school, and it's a definite step upward from "End of Days." By now this kind of action picture is pretty standard--car crashes, long-drop body falls, laser guns blasting apart the landscape, and several suspenseful chases with plenty of built-in cliffhangers. Plus a lot of futuristic gadgetry, with emphasis on helicopters that can be turned into streamlined jet planes and run by remote controls small enough to strap to your forearm. Or take the Virtual Reality image of a beautiful babe who can even manage to unzip the front of your pants. You've seen all this before but it's well done and it raises some of the material out of what is becoming the usual in an action picture. I have to credit director Roger Spottiswoode, who has become a master at this kind of formula picture.
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What really got me going about "The 6th Day" were the cloning ideas. Schwarzenegger portrays a happily-married adventurer named Adam who runs a helicopter service that takes hunters and explorers into rugged terrain, and who unwittingly gets involved with a high-powered figure (Tony Goldwyn) who's secretly involved with a cloning scientist played benevolently by Robert Duvall, even though he is the strange Dr. Weir (you can add the "d" yourself).
Dr. Weir has discovered a way of taking your body make-up and putting it on a disc and calling it a Syncording. Meanwhile, in a giant water tank await a number of "blanks," human forms that simply have to be fed DNA on a Syncording in order to turn the blank into a specific being.
Before you can count your toes and fingers to make sure you're still alive, Arnie/Adam discovers there's a lookalike Adam substitute attending his birthday party and then making love to his wife in the backseat of his van. Arnie/Adam becomes "the running man" all over again as hired killers try to rub him out and he sets out to uncover the diabolical plot in which you can never assume that anyone is really who they say they are. It's possible that any character is a clone, or perhaps even a clone of a clone. Would you believe a clone of a clone of a clone? Don't blink.
The film only deals with the major issues of cloning, and whether man should have the power to control the creation of artificial beings, in a superficial fashion but uses these ideas visually within the context of a fast-paced plot that leaves little time to consider the holes in logic that are commonplace to contrived albeit exciting thrillers. I really got to thinking when Arnie/Adam visits a place called "Repet," where you can have your just-deceased animal (dog, cat or even a sheep, presumably) recreated, as long as you do it within 24 hours of the death of the original.
It
ain't art, but "The 6th Day" is a crowd pleaser and
no doubt will be cloned as fast as Hollywood can get its Syncording
ready.
© 2000 by John Stanley.
Photos © 2000 by Columbia Pictures.
Let us know what you think of this movie with an email to: talkback@thecolumnists.com
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