Picking up where God left off.... (The 6th Day (DVD))

Member Name: zOOm

Product:	The 6th Day (DVD)
Date:	31/07/01 (28 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Storyline, special effects

Disadvantages: directing

The title is a quote from the movie. I just watched this movie yesterday and must say I am impressed and just as much worried!!!

I was wondering when Arnold Schwarzenegger would make a good movie again (let's face it, "End of Days" wasn't exactly his greatest hit!). I have to admit that even though this movie is not his best, it is one of his better ones.

Of course it's not all Arnold's fault. The scenario itself is plausible and the timing is actually excellent for the release of the film, but, I do not like the delivery. The message is there but it just ain't getting through as well as it could have in the hands of another director/producer team.

So, what's the movie about? It's all about playing God actually!!!

The setting is the near future, where cars drive themselves, helicopters can turn into jet aircraft with the touch of a button and you can bring your dead pet back to life at Repet!

No, this is not "Pet Semetery" type of horror story, it is all about cloning! The movie starts off by telling us humans have cloned a sheep (remember "Dolly") and then they unlocked the code for the human genome, then they attempted to clone a human and everything went horribly wrong - hence the 6th Day Law was passed, making human cloning illegal.

However, Michael Drucker (played by Tony Goldwyn) who owns Replacement Technologies is not too happy about this idea. His company has found a way of cloning pets (and humans) within 2 hours and even giving them the exact same memory as they had at the time of their death! Hence, they never know they were dead!!! However, human cloning is banned so he cannot make as much money as he would like.

Schwarzenegger plays Adam Gibson, a helicopter pilot with his own charter company which he operates with his flying partner Hank (played by Michael Rapaport).

One day, after his company does a job for Drucker, Adam g
oes back to his home to find himself celebrating his birthday. As you guessed by now, he has been cloned.

If you are a huge corporation that has done something wrong, how do you cover your tracks? You destroy the evidence! So the aim is to kill Adam and you know that ain't going to be easy! That's when the chase scenes start!

With Adam on the run and Drucker's men on his tail, there are a lot of action scenes, explosions and chases.

One thing I don't like is that the director keeps using this little sequence of a "flight over the city" type of effect to show the passage of time (at least that's what I think, anyway). I actually find this quite annoying!

The director is Roger Spottiswood (he of "Tomorrow Never Dies" & "Turner & Hooch" fame) and I have to say I don't like his directing. I didn't really like it in the other movies either. There is always this superficiality to everything for some reason.

And the spoiler section
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Hank & Adam switch places for the Drucker charter job so that Adam can go to Repet and get his dog cloned (it had died that morning). However a strange sequence happens (I don't know what the director is trying there but he is failing miserably) and Adam wakes up in a taxi in front of the shopping mall.

When he goes home, he sees himself celebrating his birthday with his family and just then two people claiming to be police approach him and tell him they are there to help. But then they try to kill him and the chase starts. You know Adam will escape but how?

Drucker's men keep dying (Adam keeps killing them) and they are always cloned back to life within two hours. As they do not lose their memory they keep chasing him.

As with everything, there are protestors against cloning and it turns out that one of them has managed to kill Drucker (and Hank in the process). Because
Drucker's men didn't know about the switch between Adam & Hank, they cloned Adam instead. Drucker himself has been cloned a few times already. The trouble is no one is allowed to find out that Replacement Technologies clones humans or that Drucker is a clone, clone's do not have any rights. The only thing to do is to kill Adam and let his clone live because the clone doesn't know anything.

Adam ofcourse is not going to die easily and uses a thumb (sort of like the use of the eye in "Demolition Man") from one of Drucker's goons to get through building security and access what he wants.

It also turns out that Drucker is building illnesses into peoples stored DNA. Why? Insurance! Imagine a sports person, if he doesn't sign with Drucker's company, then he'll die. If he does, then Drucker will keep bringing him back to life everytime he dies!!!

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The ending itself is rather lame even with a twist and I really think this movie and the topic has been wasted.

The idea itself is scary enough and you can almost see it becoming true.

Overall, a watchable movie, especially good for Schwarzenegger fans. The special effects are good and so are the chase scenes. I actually did enjoy the movie, it could have been much better though!

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