The Island

Packing a powerful pro-life punch, this movie could change some minds about cloning | Gene Edward Veith

Science fiction has long imagined the dire consequences of cloning, human manufacturing, and biological engineering. But the public—its imagination currently inflamed with dreams of everlasting life and health through stem cells made from the bodies of unborn babies—is largely supportive of the new Frankenstein technologies.

The Island (rated PG-13 for sensuality and intense violence) might change some minds. Whether its message comes from the views of the filmmakers—the action-movie director Michael Bay and writer Caspian Tredwell-Owen—or whether it just emerges logically from the movie's premise, The Island packs a powerful pro-life punch.

The story, set in the mid-21st century, opens with a seeming utopia. Everyone is taken care of, with round-the-clock health care and mandatory good nutrition, and exhorted to be happy. The white-and-stainless-steel sterile environment protects the inhabitants from a "contamination" that supposedly destroyed life in the outside world. Those lucky enough to win a special lottery, though, get to go to an island paradise.

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August 06, 2005, Vol. 20, No. 30

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