Whatever happened to Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger? Their name on a marquee use to mean instant hit. This year Stallone did Get Carter. Did anyone see that? Arnold gives us The 6th Day. Another disappointment.

In The 6th Day, Arnold stars as a man who is cloned to cover up a murder. Yeah, the movie is as far fetched as it sounds. There are tons of special affects and explosions. Lots of action and a little suspense. There is, however, no characterization to speak of. Arnold is your average family man who kills lots of people when he's threatened.

The movie could have been a lot more intellectual in dealing with the subject of cloning. The moral/ethical implications are only touched on. Cloning is nothing but a grotesque gimmick in this movie. Robert Duvall is wasted as the scientist responsible for creating the process to clone humans. He's a modern day Dr. Frankenstein.

The action is average movie fare. Some decent humor is slipped in. It is not enough to help this movie. Arnold needs to be a lot more picky when choosing roles.

↑Back to Top↑

This is a movie in love with technology. Every opportunity is used to show wonderful and exciting uses of it. The movie rotates around it and some of the funniest and entertaining scenes are those when they are showing it. The sim-pal Cindy scene is the best example, along with the virtual psychiatrist. If only the same care and attention were used in the script. Sadly, it was not.

This is a movie that doesn't know what it wants to be. Is it an action film? A comedy? A philosophical discussion on the morality of cloning? It attempts each of those, but never achieves any of them.

As an action movie, it rings flat with a feeling of been there, done that. It offers nothing new. All of the bad guys went to the Stormtrooper school of marksmanship, that is they all have heavy firepower but can't hit the broadside of a barn. Arnold is indestructible and although a family man, he kills without compunction. There is never any moments of real tension.

As a comedy it is most successful. It has fun with technology as I said. I did laugh a few times. But only a few times. There aren't enough of these funny moments to sustain the movie.

Without an actor of Robert Duvall's caliber, this movie would never have attempted the philosophical discussion of cloning ethics. His scenes with his wife seem to be from a different movie altogether. He is almost as out of place in this movie as DeNiro was in The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle. It is always sad when great actors take part in pathetic movies for such obvious financial reasons. Needless to say, as a deep, meaningful movie, this one fails miserably.

Is Arnold just a dinosaur left over from Reagan's eighties mentality? Can he ever have a hit again? He'll try with Terminator III, but I seriously doubt he will ever have a success again. But this is Hollywood, a world where anything is possible.

↑Back to Top↑