16. Dr. Bernard Merrick The Island (2005) In this unsuccessful clones-are-people-too parable, Bean plays a soulless head scientist who is basically a genetic slaver. Wealthy people pay him to raise and keep their clones in stasis against the need for a new liver or replacement arm; instead, he has them conscious but kept in a state of childlike innocence; it’s like the proto-Dollhouse, but not nearly as interesting. Of course, this status quo, while profitable, cannot be maintained for long, or we wouldn’t have much of a movie, and Lincoln Six Echo (Ewan McGregor), a most unusually curious clone, escapes from the company’s clutches with Scarlett Johanssen in tow (nice work if you can get it), and the pair later return to liberate all of the other clones. At which time Bean’s bean counter Merrick, who is almost incidental to the plot -- sure, he orders a few deaths and such, but for our movie’s nominal villain, he really is massively inconspicuous -- gets in a tussle with Lincoln that ends with him hung by a cable after having been shot through the neck by a grappling hook. If only the rest of the movie had been that creative.
Posted on: Sat, 22 Jun 2013 23:26:31 +0000
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