Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tony Goldwyn, Robert Duvall
Directed by Roger Spottiswoode

= 3 stars

Amazon Link

A particular subset of action movies embody a specific modern fantasy - Mr. Hero, suburban male, successful in every way (McMansion, loving wife, kids, upper middle class job) suddenly finds himself in a situation where everything is not as it seems. Mr. Hero’s home life is threatened by some grand conspiracy involving politics, evil corporations, and mean, ugly people. Eventually, the complicated plot is reduced to situations where the solutions are thankfully simplistic and caveman-primal: guns, driving cars really fast, and punching people. Mr. Hero rises to the occasion and kicks some serious ass.

I could go further and imagine that a certain male demographic feels helpless with their primeval skills delegated to charcoal fires, slicing steaks, and standing around car engines grunting. They might be drawn to this escapist fantasy where muscles and violence win out over intellect, money, and politics. But this is rather sad to consider, really.

Anyhow, in The 6th Day, Arnold Schwarzenegger is Mr. Hero (or, Adam Gibson). The plot is as laid out above, set in the not-too-distant future (but soon enough that its prognostications will be rendered laughable by 2017) where an evil corporation run by an evil, money loving corporate mastermind (exactly like The Island) uses cloning technology to create human clones. Someone who is thought to be Adam is killed, and Adam’s clone is created. Unfortunately, the real Adam is still very much alive, and he gets to see the clone doppelganger in his house, celebrating his child’s birthday, and surely schtupping his wife. The evil corporation dispatches a posse of clones to kill him or the clone and away we go with the punching and the grunting of clones.

Action movie hilarity abounds:

• Despite Adam’s suburban background, he seems to have picked up military fighting techniques somewhere along the way: a person pointing a gun is easily disarmed with a hand-twist, neck under elbow move, the ability to drive a car at NASCAR velocity, and the ability to leap from said car as it drives over a cliff to the snickering of evil henchmen.
• Evil corporate mastermind loves money and is mean to his evil henchmen that are slightly stupider than the mastermind, hence why they are henchmen and not masterminds running competing corporations.
• One evil henchman is a woman who acts manly, as she mutters “asshole,” kicks people, and after being resurrected via cloning, takes the earrings off her corpse and jabs them through her ear.
• When you have a bomb, there’s always a nearby oxygen tank to attach it to.
• Explosions occur and someone says “cool.”
• Building security can be defeated if you think like a twelve year old.
• Evil corporate mastermind dies a horrible death.
• Mr. Schwarzenegger is presently the governor of California, adding another level of unintentional humor.

Semi-amusing is the film’s depiction of the future. The film was made in 2000, before the worst of the .com crash and 9/11, and has a relatively optimistic view of technology. We see Internet-enabled refrigerators, flat panel touch screens, mall holograms, cars that drive themselves, and voice activated avatar assistants. But I have to say I prefer the dark cynicism of Minority Report or Artificial Intelligence where at least some of the negative aspects of too much technology is considered. The 6th Day resembles a Sharper Image catalog come to life.

To sum up, The 6th Day is average, brain dead entertainment. Although it got more ridiculous as it went on, I still found it amusing enough to sit through the whole thing. I really wanted to see that one clone get what he had coming.

IMDB: The 6th Day
Wikipedia: The 6th Day
Rotten Tomatoes: The 6th Day 39%

Categories: 3 Star Movies, General, Movies :: Tags: :: Trackback URL
Front Page
Previous Post: Movie Notes: Runaway
Next Post: Advertising Thoughts
Related Posts: Apple Releases Apple TV 2.0.1 Update :: Apple: Movie Download Purchases Are Great, But I Want More Rentals :: Movie Notes: Idiocracy Was Online :: Cleaning House ::