Michael Bay’s Best Movie Was a Box Office Bomb

Seasoned action director Michael Bay has delivered some truly breathtaking spectacles to the big screen between films like 1996’s The Rock, which pitted Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage against rogue soldiers on Alcatraz, and, of course, the long-running Transformers franchise. While critical opinions on Bay’s work has varied from film to film, what cannot be denied is that a Michael Bay action epic will do wonders at the box office, resulting in the divisive filmmaker continuing to crank out blockbusters year after year.

But in 2005, two years before taking over the world with the first Transformers film, Bay released The Island, a thought-provoking science fiction thriller that, in a rare occurrence for the director, flopped hard at the box office, earning only $35 million at the U.S. box office on a budget of $126 million. Although the film had stiff competition that summer — films like Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, Batman Begins and War of the Worlds also released weeks prior — many, including Bay himself, were surprised at the financial outcome.

‘The Island’ Has a Chilling and Thought-Provoking Concept

Featuring an all-star cast including Ewan McGregor, Scarlett Johansson, Sean Bean, and Djimon Hounsou, and a high-concept premise, The Island begins in the year 2019, after a global contamination has rendered the air outside unbreathable, but one island has somehow evaded the event. The remaining population, isolated in a high-tech compound, all await the weekly lottery which picks at random one person to go live on The Island.

What the residents don’t know is that everything they know is a lie — The compound is actually miles underground, the world outside is perfectly habitable and all the residents are actually clones of the rich and famous. The winners of the lottery are selected to be killed and have their organs harvested for donation to their original sponsors, who are blissfully unaware of their illegal clone counterparts.

To the film’s credit, the big questions this idea asks are not ignored. The characters take time to discuss the implications of whether or not these clones are in fact people. While some, namely Dr. Merrick (Bean), the head of the operation, claims they have no souls and are simply tools, the fact that the film’s perspective is told via the clones presents a different picture. The film’s slow-burn opening puts the audience in the shoes of Lincoln Six Echo (McGregor) as he goes about his daily routine while questioning what he thinks he knows.

Michael Bay Takes His Time to Set Up the World

Because Bay spends the first half of the film in Lincoln’s mindset, not only does this trick allow the audience to sympathize with his plight and agree with him, but it also makes the audience want to know more about the world they are in. The viewers are airdropped into an established world without explanation, making the moment where Lincoln discovers the truth about his existence a satisfying answer rather than an exposition dump.

The film also handles its complex moral debate with an interesting mindset. While Merrick’s operation is wildly illegal and questionable, the fact remains that what he is doing is saving lives and allowing the sponsors a longer life and the opportunity to cheat death. Even though that opportunity is killing life that was only created for the purpose of being killed anyway. The film hammers this home when Johansson’s Jordan Two Delta discovers that her sponsor was in a car accident and has a young son. Although Jordan and Lincoln obviously do not want to die, their survival means a death sentence to their original sponsors.

But the film also touches on the human experience in a unique way. Merrick’s original intention was to simply create organs copied off the sponsors for donation, but after trial and error, realized that the only way he could was to create life. This blinds Merrick to the idea that the clones are anything more than a means to an end, but also shows that only life experience and being human can create anything at all. Like most great allegories, these ideas are discussed within the film, but also inspire greater debate after the credits have rolled.

While The Island may not have done well at the time of its release, the film stands out among Bay’s filmography as a think piece of humanity, ethics and survival. Those that see Bay’s films as nothing more than mindless action should not overlook his forgotten sci-fi entry as it shows Bay’s prowess as a storyteller.

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Release Date

July 21, 2005

Runtime

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136 Minutes

Writers

Roberto Orci, Caspian Tredwell-Owen, Alex Kurtzman

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