The best performance, in a film full of convincing performances, comes from Djimon Hounsou as Laurent, the morally-conflicted mercenary sent after our heroes Scarlett Johansson & Ewan McGregor. While it’s a character that easily could have been played by any generic macho movie touch guy on-reserve like Christos Vasilopoulos or Michael Jai White, Laurent – as played by Hounsou – has conviction, and commands attention. It’s probably the role I’ll remember him most for, even if he’s woefully sidelined in the third act – the film’s only real disappointment.

Anyone who wonders whether director Michael Bay (yes, THAT Michael Bay, love him or hate him) is capable of making something serious should look no further than “The Island”. Sure, Bay can’t resist himself in the handful of action scenes that are here – including a mid-movie showstopper that escalates from launching giant steel train wheels off a moving flat-deck, to hanging precariously off the edge of a giant logo at the top of a skyscraper – but they aren’t the film’s focus. Be that as it may, don’t think that because you aren’t getting the intensity level of “Transformers 4” that The Island isn’t consistently thrilling, because it is: Bay’s bombastic technique keeps the pacing kinetic for the 2 hour+ runtime.

The film’s secret standout is its script – co-written by TV showrunners Kurtzman & Orci – and the less said the better. Okay, so you might guess what’s going on before the cut-and-dry reveal by Steve Buscemi, and it isn’t necessarily the freshest story off the line, but the production finds new ways, right up until its climax, to raise the stakes – however predictable. It’s fun. It’s one of only a handful of films I’ve seen in theatres more than once by choice, and almost 20-years-later this most recent viewing was just as entertaining: my older, wiser mind was keen to catch all the tricks in the film’s first half to keep the viewer at arm’s length. Good Job!

4.5 out of 5