El 6º día

The 6th Day had the potential to be a classic Schwarzenegger sci-if action film in the realm of Total Recall or Terminator, if only it aspired that high. The B-movie vibe is hard to escape with generic action scenes and wooden dialogue. Arnie is his usual entertaining self though and does most of the heavy lifting (pun intended). This film puts forth some genuinely interesting ethical dilemmas, just don't think too hard about the plot.

I was pleasantly surprised with how good the not very favorably reviewed 6th day was. It delivered in several ways:

• It has the expected action, stunts, effects.

• It has the expected one-liners and humor.

• Acting is generally perfectly adequate for the purpose. Rather, it must be pretty good when I never was disturbed by any bad acting.

• It is nicely futuristic in a near-future fashion with many perfectly or partially believable ideas (and some that we don't quite believe in, but hey, if we accept hyperspace travel then we can accept this).

• It has a message that actually keeps us thinking after leaving the movie. The cloning problem is considered from many points of view (not only as the bad guy's evil plan). How far can we heal, how far can we preserve life, when does it become an ethical problem, when will it clash with religion?

That is quite impressive if you ask me.

However, sometimes it fails on two points: Predictability and suspense. Some scenes, especially involving the bad guy, are so embarrassingly predictable that it makes me wish they could have skipped some clichés just for once. And the movie misses great suspense opportunities on several occasions. I won't tell you how, who or when, but when a guy is assassinated, it should not happen just out of the blue, but we should be led into the situation slowly (for example from the assassin's point of view) so we get the chance to worry about it. That opportunity is missed at least twice, when the movie jumps straight into the kill, giving us momentary cheap shock instead of thrill. Compare it to the killing in, for example, Predator (one of the most excellent Arnold movies). Most kills by the Predator don't come out of the blue, we are warned, and it adds suspense and thrill.

Those flaws push the movie down from the top marks, but I still rank it pretty high for the points mentioned above. Quite entertaining and even interesting too, which makes it one of the better Arnold movies. Recommended!

Ran "Raw Deal" (1986) and "The Sixth Day" (2000) back to back and its interesting to see the embodiment of decadence. Fourteen years can make a big difference. I don't mean Arnold's aging. That's a given for all of us. And I don't mean his graceless and wooden movements. That was always a given for Arnold. I mean the fact that Arnold's earlier movies were usually more or less realistic, although they sometimes reached the parameters of possibility. But later they tended to transform themselves into logical puzzles enhanced by an abundance of computer-generated images.

In "Raw Deal," for instance, Arnold takes a few belts in the jaw, but he can clean out a nest of a dozen or more gangsters killing every one of them. They're all prepared and armed to the teeth but it makes no difference. They shoot and miss. Arnold doesn't miss. But that aside, it's a realistic movie set in the present. We can at least IMAGINE that Arnold can shoot that much better than everyone else. The story even reaches for the surreal at times. His drunken wife throws a cake at him. "You should not dwink and bake," he remarks unflappably. Later he kicks out the windshield of his Caddy convertible and drives wildly through a quarry full of enemies with machine guns. He mows them merrily down while "I Don't Get No Satisfaction" plays on his tape.

In "The Sixth Day" the wit and self parody are largely absent. The pieces of the logical puzzle are there but no one really bothers to fit them together. One or two comments and Arnold has had enough of what he calls "philosophy." It's about cloning and the management and bioethics of same. The villains, for instance -- Tony Goldwyn in a fine performance -- have built a life-limiting disorder into each of their clones because even after cloning a psychopath there is still the possibility of redemption. What do you do if you encounter someone who is your identical clone, right down to the slightest episodic memory from childhood, carrying the same devotion to your wife and daughter as you -- and he, all unwittingly, has taken your place? You have a chance to murder him but should you? He is, in every sense except birthing, a second you, although he doesn't know he is. Isn't that murder? How about -- suicide?

In any case, despite the zappy editing and loud noises, there are the usual moments of comedy. One young Gothic heavy has been killed and cloned so many times he's beginning to complain about a sore neck and has to be reminded that his spine was fractured in a previous life. A beautiful Goth woman with neon-blue hair is killed and then freshly reconstituted. She leaps nude from the table and rushes to a mirror, flushed with anger. "Now I have to pierce my ears again!"

Not sure why this excellent and thought provoking Arnie sci fi film is rated so low. It has all the elements of a darn good film and is pulled off quite well. Arnie is likeable as usual and this time he is supported by a strong cast. The villain Michael Drucker is esp good by Tony Goldwyn. I rate it high on the list of Schwarzenegger sci fi flicks. An easy 8.

In an Utopian nearly future , cloning is a habitual exercise, fish, dogs,animals and food can be cloned, but no human genre, being illegal and pursued. When Adam Gibson(Arnold Schwarzenegger, also producer) goes to home after his job as helicopters pilot along with his friend Hank(Michael Rapaport) he encounters a clone has replaced him.Then he's chased by a murderers group(Michael Rooker, Sara Wynter, Terry Crews). He flees and must to solve the weird happenings from the creator of the clones, Michael Drucken(Tony Goldwyn), whose experiments is working Dr. Griffin(Robert Duvall).

This is a gripping sci-fi story plenty of action, thrills, suspense,tension, plot-twists and quite entertaining. It's a clichéd thriller with noisy and agreeable fun . It builds gradually with an interesting premise leading an impressive and breathtaking highlights, thanks to involving plot is interesting enough to keep the movie going on. Action set pieces are well made and amusingly mixed with humor, the picture delivers just what we have come expecting.It's one of the best of those years generally inappropriate crop of blockbusters, but this one contains lots of action and enjoyable humor. A sympathetic and as corpulent as always, Arnold Schwarzenegger as the good father of family plunged into a sinister scenery he tries to find out but doesn't understand. Adequate musical score fitting perfectly to action by Trevor Rabin and colorful cinematography by Pierre Mignot.The motion picture is acceptably directed by Robert Spottiswoode. He's a successful director from TV movies and cinema, as terror genre(Terror train), adventures(Air America,Shoot to kill),drama(Children of Hang Shi), James Bond film(Tomorrow never dies), and his best movie is ¨Under fire¨.Rating: Passable and good fun film. The pic will like to California governor's fans