I just finished re-watching The Island(2005). Despite that it's flawed and less than it could be, I still enjoyed watching it, even a second time.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Island_(2005_film)

 Quote:
The Island drew mixed reviews from critics.[9][10] The review-agreggation website Rotten Tomatoes gives a score of 40%, with a weighted average of 5.35 out of 10 based on reviews from 200 critics. The website's "Critics Consensus" calls the film "[a] clone of THX 1138, Coma, and Logan's Run" and describes it as "another loud and bombastic Michael Bay movie where explosions and chases matter more than characters, dialogue, or plot."[11] On Metacritic, the film received "[m]ixed or average reviews," with a weighted average of 50 out of 100 based on 38 critics.[12]

Chicago Sun-Times' Roger Ebert said, "[the first half] is a spare, creepy science fiction parable, and then it shifts into a high-tech action picture. Both halves work. Whether they work together is a good question."[13] He gave the film three out of four stars and praised the performances of the actors, in particular Michael Clarke Duncan: "[He] has only three or four scenes, but they're of central importance, and he brings true horror to them." On the critical side, he said the film "never satisfactorily comes full circle" and missed the opportunity "to do what the best science fiction does, and use the future as a way to critique the present."

Variety's Justin Chang called the film an "exercise in sensory overkill" and said that Bay took on "the weighty moral conundrums of human cloning, resolving them in a storm of bullets, car chases and more explosions than you can shake a syringe at."[14] He noted McGregor and Buscemi as highlights of the film, along with Nigel Phelps' production design. However, he felt the story lacked in surprises and blamed "attention-deficit editing by Paul Rubell and Christian Wagner" for action sequences that he thought lacked tension and were "joltingly repetitive".

Salon's Stephanie Zacharek also praised the actors but felt that when the film "[gets] really interesting, Bay thinks he needs to throw in a car crash or a round of gunfire to keep our attention." She felt the film had enough surprises "to make you wish it were better."[15] Similarly, The New York Times' reviewer A.O. Scott said, "[the] film is smarter than you might expect, and at the same time dumber than it could be."[16]

Reviewers were critical of the excessive product placement in the film.[17][18][19]


That perfectly gels with my own impressions of the movie. Particularly the clonal Logan's Run elements.
And the tossing in of action where exploring concept was called for.

Another movie that I think is more intelligently done and comes to a more satisfying conclusion, following similar themes is Gattaca.