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The 6th Day film review
THE 6TH DAY
Running time: 123 mins
Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Rapaport, Tony Goldwyn, Robert Duvall, Michael Rooker, Sarah Wynter, Wendy Crewson
The title's biblical reference suggests the film has slightly loftier ambitions than your average sci-fi thriller and to its credit it does actually manage to elevate itself above the more prosaic and shallow futuristic fare. The film deals with the subject of cloning, more specifically human cloning, its possibilities and implications as well as its ethics all within an action packed plot.
Set in the future, though "sooner than you think" according to the prologue, it opens with a star quarterback suffering a career-ending injury. With the team's success at stake, the decision is quickly made by the team owner and corporate magnate Michael Drucker (Goldwyn) to euthanise the player and have him cloned, thereby facilitating his immediate return to the team.
Although animal cloning is legal, human cloning is not and is considered a 6th Day violation by authorities. Drucker though, is trying to exert his influence and power on the authorities to change the law, meanwhile, under the auspices of Dr Griffin Weir (Duvall), he continues to carry out Illicit cloning at his genetic engineering company Replacement Technologies.
Schwarzenegger plays Adam Gibson, a thrill seeking family man who pilots helicopters for a charter company. Gibson is scheduled to transport Drucker, but at the last minute his partner Hank Morgan (Rapaport) volunteers for the task. When all are killed by anti-cloning fundamentalists, Drucker, along with the others onboard, and Gibson who was listed as being the pilot, are quickly cloned before anyone realises what has happened.
Gibson returns home for a surprise birthday party only to discover his clone already tucking into the cake and his wife Natalie (Crewson), a situation liable to upset anyone, but Arnie isn't just anyone and so begins his quest to determine why he was seeing double. At the same time Drucker dispatches his cronies to eliminate the real Gibson who remains the one person who could expose Drucker's secret.
The 6th Day is stuffed with nice little details that reveal the imagination and thought that went into creating a user-friendly and alluring future, from self-driving cars and real-life dolls through talking fridges that remind you to get some milk to virtual girlfriends and annoying automated police dispatchers. It's a world that bears a close enough resemblance to our own to make its more sinister elements all the more resonant. For Arnie fans, there are plenty of snappy one liners to satisfy demand like "you cloned the wrong man", delivered with his trademark drawl, while it's also comforting to know that in the future the world will still have car chases.
When Dr Weir's dying wife expresses her wish to be left to die and not cloned, the film takes a compassionate and moral stance, though it doesn't linger too long lest the audience get impatient, something it's never likely to do. By the end of The 6th Day I was satisfyingly exhausted and looking forward to my day of rest.
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