Well, at the very least, THE SIXTH DAY seems to be one of those Arnie flicks that won't be the resounding hit type. From the reviews and early peeks... the word has just been mixed enough that I am going into this one with lowered expectations... and who knows... with that perspective perhaps I'll enjoy it..... but I really don't dig the trailers all that much.... And the interesting positive buzz that came out of those 45 minute screenings for the press earlier this year seems to be.... well a bit manipulated.... I'm sure there is a good 45 minutes to this movie, so by showing that to the press... they got some positive word. Hmmmm... Here's our latest peek...
Hi there HARRRY!!!
What's up man, pretty crazy over there in Ausin methinks...I would have never thought in January that Bush would actually be our next president--indeed it is disturbing!
THE SIXTH DAY
'A mini-review'
I was fortunate/unfortunate enough to see the new Schwarzennegger vehicle the other day, Roger "Turner and Hooch" Spottiswoode's THE SIXTH DAY. The production costed Phoenix Films and Columbia Pictures 90 million dollars, and I'd venture it will cost them another 50% with marketing, distribution, and the reshoots that I have heard about. That's a pretty big price tag for a movie that, quite frankly, I hadn't heard much about.
This was a brand new print--out of the labs on the 18th of October--and never been viewed; though I'm sure many other audiences have seen the film.
The opening of the film is a prologue, and inneffective at that. It tells the history of cloning and genetic engineering the the world, some factual, and some fabricated so as to bring us up to date. The film takes place in the future during what I would estimate to be 10 years. A lot of things are different: no one uses a razor to shave, we watch the news on our bathroom mirrors, when our pets die they are now cloned by 'Re-Pet', and there are these lame charter helicoptors that turn into pseudo-jets that fly normal dudes race around mountaintops after dropping off affluent snow-boarders. Woo-hoo, sounds pretty rad!
Arnold plays Adam, your 'average guy' Jimmy Stewart type dude with a daughter, wife, and blue-collared job. Of course, Arnold is hardly your average dude, and unless they take the COMMANDO route and turn him into a relentless killing machine, I'm thinking to myself: "this film ain't gonna work".
I was right.
Anyway, after a strange day at work, on his birthday no less, he comes home to find a clone has replaced him, that is, there is another Adam enjoying HIS birthday party.
The latter is a total contrivance, of course, but an acceptable one at that given the genre.
Unfortunately, the film is a bit of a headache from there on out. Too much mundane action and way too much philosophical pandering that is obviously futile in this poor excuse for an intelligent action film, ala THREE KINGS and THE MATRIX.
Moreover, we've seen quite possibly the most profound cautionary tale regarding 'genetic engineering' our time within the last five years: GATTACA. THE SIXTH DAY has little to say about the subject--it is 100% high-concept.
Oh, and it's both boring and redundant--a bit of a stuffed turkey coming your way this Thanksgiving.
To continue, Arnold learns that he has been cloned illegally by an operation ran by two men, the political manipulator (Tony Goldwyn, almost unbearable, yet forgettable enough to bear), and Robert Duvall (who would have thought that Tony Goldwyn could bring THIS BRILLIANT ACTOR down?). Goldwyn's character is the type of action film megalomaniac that I'm sure by now we are all sick of: intelligent, witty, evil, yet ultimately near-sighted...the staple enemy of all action cinema.
Arnold, with the help of others (and eventually his clone) formulate a plan to save both Arnold clones' lives. You see, the evil genetic engineers have to kill Arnold's character because, having seen his other self, is a witness to the violation of the Sixth Day laws (no human cloning legislature), and so the entire second and third acts are spent making attempts at killing him.
One of the film's biggest disappointments is Michael Rooker. He usually can pull of a character that is a bit of an exaggeration, but still maintains its credibility. However, his 'evil thug gang leader' role in the film is a bit preposterous. Moreover, his cronies are not only a bit cliched and superficially evil but dramatically empty, but they CANNOT DIE! Seriously, because the bad guys have cloning technology, when one of their thugs bites the dust, no problem, just render up another thug!
As for the script and dialogue, the film is chock full of all you would expect from a bad action film: corny, unfunny, and even nauseating one-liners, overly over foreshadowing, and those sentimental moments that make film geeks sick.
If you have not yet caught my drift, THE SIXTH DAY is a big stinker.
But the thing that upsets me most about the film is that it is trying to play itself off as an intellectual tale and commentary on human morality. I was able to hear the producer of Phoenix Pictures speak after the film, and I don't know if he was trying to play 'spin doctor' on the audience or what, but he seriously tried to persuade the audience that there was more too this film that sci-fi action. Ostensibly, he seems to genuinely believe that this is both entertaining and engaging--that it will make people think about the "integrity" of Arnold's character and the situation that he is in.
This is of course ludicrous: the film is a crock, out to rake in the dough. And we all know that films with a conflict of interest, that is, films that have $$$$ as the primary agenda item, but tried to be sold off as intellectual product are cancer of modern cinema. This is no GATTACA or FIGHT CLUB, just a Holiday disappointment.
Sure, you might want to check it out to make your own decision. I miss the days of THE RUNNING MAN and COMMANDO, and I'm sure many other's do as well. But as a fellow fan of film, I feel it's my duty to throw up the red flag.
You've been warned, take care dudes!
Stig Helmer
