The 6th Day

In the near future your pet cat can live forever. Cars drive by themselves with only your voice guiding them. Dolls are as lifelike as kid sisters, interacting and growing like real humans. And you can be replaced by a clone of yourself, and no one will know the difference. This is the premise of "The 6th Day," Marianne and Cormac Wibberley's take on our nottoo distant future and the consequences of human cloning gone out of control. Arnold Schwarzenegger stars as Adam Gibson, a man who discovers that a clone has stolen his life. Determined to get it back, Gibson goes on a mission to destroy his clone ... if its makers don't destroy Gibson first. Fighting for both the life he lost and what little he has left, Gibson soon realizes that taking on the clone makers is harder than it seems. Every time Gibson kills one of them, a clone takes their place. In other words, they are immortal. Now, Gibson is out to save himself as well as his family and get back the life he once had. In order to do that, though, he may just have to join sides with something he never wanted to face ... himself. Unlike many futuristic films that are so offthe wall ridiculous, "The 6th Day" is intelligent, humorous, actionpacked and — most of all — believable. The opening sequence sets the mood. It briefly goes into real life history of cloning and DNA research, then looks ahead to the possibility of human cloning. In the film's fictional history, human cloning was banned after one experiment went drastically wrong. This captures the audience and makes us believers. After all, Dolly and the DNA decoding really happened, human cloning is far from out of the question, and one hopes the law would protect us from ourselves. But this is an Ahnold film, after all, and as such is much more than a thoughtpiece on biotech ethics — it's full of oneliners to keep the mood light and there's enough action to move the plot along nicely. But a film this thoughtout doesn't need as many humorous and actionpacked distractions as it delivers. Sometimes these elements seem forced and distract viewers from the main plotline. Director Roger Spottiswoode seems too focused on Schwarzenegger's presence and his status as an actionstar and not enough on the fact that the film isn't Schwarzenegger's typical movie — it is much too intelligent for that. The acting in the film holds its own, but no one is spectacular or even particularly memorable. Schwarzenegger does a fair job portraying his character, but its basically Schwarzenegger playing Schwarzenegger once again. Michael Rapaport shines as Adam's best friend, but his character isn't in the film enough for Rapaport's full potential as an actor to be noticed. The only real standout performance is Robert Duvall's portrayal of a scientist who discovers the secret to human cloning in order to save his dying wife. However, Duvall's strong performance is actually a weak point in the film; he plays his part with so much more feeling than Schwarzenegger's Adam it makes the audience feel more sympathy for him, the clone maker, than Adam, the cloning victim. Despite a few weak moments, "The 6th Day" gives us a smart, actionpacked film that takes itself seriously in a genre made up of ridiculously unbelievable films. It stays lifelike up to the end, and is complete with an unforgettable finale. It should please both fans of typical Schwarzenegger fare as well as people who don't normally flock to his type of movies.