amily man Adam Gibson (Schwarzenegger) lives a near-perfect life in a near-future
city. He pilots "Whispercraft" hybrid planes--half helicopter, half jet--to take
rich clients to the wilderness. He and his partner, Hank (Rapaport), have one more
big client--wealthy industrialist Drucker (Goldwyn)--to ferry to a skiing outpost,
and then Gibson can return home for his "surprise" birthday party. But before they
can leave, Gibson's wife, Natalie (Wendy Crewson), tells Gibson
that the family dog has died. She asks if he can get it cloned at the neighborhood mall's
"RePet" store before their 8-year-old daughter, Clara, finds out.
Gibson is wary. He's not used to this newfangled world in which cloning
has solved the world's food crisis and pets can be replicated in a couple
of hours, complete with intact memories. At least the government has passed
"sixth-day" laws--after the Genesis passage in which God created man on the
sixth day--to prevent human cloning. Hank is to fly Drucker
to the mountains, posing as Gibson. Gibson goes to
the mall, where he chooses instead to buy Clara a "simpal"--a talking
mechanical homunculus in the shape of a little girl.
But when Gibson arrives home, the birthday party's in full swing--and Gibson
sees himself blowing out the candles. Just then, a trio of goons--Marshall
(Michael Rooker), Wiley (Rod Rowland) and Talia (Sarah Wynter)--shows up.
Talia tells Gibson that there's been a "sixth-day" violation. A man has been
cloned. And he is that man.
Gibson tries to run and
goes to Hank's apartment, where
an assassin appears and shoots Hank. Gibson gives chase, and
just before the killer dies, the assassin tells Gibson that Hank was really a clone,
an abomination before God, and that the secret to Gibson's plight lies at
Replacement Technologies--the corporation run by Drucker and Dr. Graham Weir (Duvall).
Seeing double doesn't pay off
The 6th Day, directed by Tomorrow Never Dies helmer Spottiswoode
and written by first-timers the Wibberleys (with extensive uncredited rewrites
by executive producer Daniel Petrie Jr.), contains some original ideas and an
ironic take on the near-future that recalls Paul Verhoeven's Robocop
and Total Recall. It also tackles what it foresees as the coming
controversy over the ethics of cloning, framed in an adventure story that
pits Everyman Schwarzenegger against his bewildered other self and a
phalanx of cyberpunkish villains.
But despite some impressive effects and intriguing issues, The 6th Day
ultimately pales in comparison with the other SF films. The plot is overly
predictable, the action sequences feel very familiar, and Schwarzenegger--whatever
his charms--seems overmatched by the emotional demands of his twin roles,
particularly when he has to play against himself.
The other characters, all performed by extremely accomplished actors, are at best
paper-thin and at worst complete cartoons. Only Robert Duvall's Dr. Weir, the
conscience-stricken scientist most responsible for opening Pandora's clone
box, comes near to being a conflicted and complicated man.
But in the end, the movie is less about cloning than a rehash of the
Frankenstein story, with an overreaching corporate oligarch
taking the place of the prideful scientist whose hubris taunts the
gods. In the universe of The 6th Day, cloning is a means to
quick-and-easy resurrection, and it's not a big ethical dilemma to
figure out whether that's such a great idea.
In the meantime, there's some fun to be had with the filmmakers'
imagining of near-future gadgetry, such as a talking refrigerator,
a truck that drives itself and attack dogs that can be operated by
remote control. The coolest gadget--though not as cool as the filmmakers
seem to think--is the Whispercraft, a computer-generated plane that plays
a crucial role in the film's climax. There's also a few laughs to be had involving
the very creepy "simpal" doll.
