"The 6th Day"
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-.
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