Crimes:
- Telling an ideologically muddled story that combines anti-"human farming" rhetoric with a lot of indiscriminate killing by wide-eyed clone heroes Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson
- Containing about a thousand plot holes, starting with the conception of a top-secret cloning facility with the security system of a U-Stor-It
- Featuring the standard Michael Bay allotment of overwrought, hard-to-follow action scenes and jarring narrative leaps
Defender: Director Michael Bay
Tone of commentary: Full-on arrogant, with lots of self-serving recognition of the "amazing shots" and the scenes that are "so my sense of humor," as well as multiple mentions of all the scenes that "certain people" wanted to cut, but that Bay heroically wouldn't. Bay also defends the movie's absurd number of product placements by saying that the world of the future will be just as "focused on products" as the world of today, though he fails to explain why imprisoned clones would care that they're drinking Aquafina.
What went wrong: Aside from some qualms about the movie's ending, Bay insists that it flopped because Dreamworks' domestic marketing was "too smart." Warner Brothers' overseas marketing was apparently far more successful, since "This is one of the 10 biggest grossers of all time in Korea."
Comments on the cast: Bay magically turns every compliment into praise for himself, saying of McGregor, "If I can make Martin Lawrence an action hero, I can do it for anyone," and of Johansson, "My job is to make Scarlett likeable, and her picking up this wrench is the first sign of her doing something badass."
Inevitable dash of pretension: The doggedly unpretentious Bay doesn't delve much into The Island's ethical quandaries, though he tells a long anecdote about a prince—"I can't tell you his name"—who travels with his own personal organ donor.
Commentary in a nutshell: Bay explains that he made one character a boat-designer because he himself kept getting brochures in the mail for quarter-million-dollar yacht excursions. "That's how you get ideas in movies," he boasts. "They come right from real life."