Rating: **
Release Date: 11/17/00
Music: Trevor Rabin
Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tony Goldwyn, Robert Duvall, Michael Rooker,
Sarah Wynter
A simple, but entertaining sci-fi actioner carefully tailored to fit Arnold Schwarzenegger's style. In the not so distant future, Man has succeeded in cloning animals, but laws have been put into place to ban the cloning of humans. Naturally, some very powerful people disregard these laws and do it anyway. The poor innocent victim of this cloning turns out to be a pilot named Adam Gibson (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and he spends the entire movie being chased by the villain's goons who want him dead because of what he knows (this all seemed a little too reminiscent of "Total Recall" (1990) to me). He and his clone finally hook up in order to save their family and to put the bad guys out of business.
Fun and lightweight action, but it never seemed to gel for me. Things finally get interesting towards the end, but the majority of the film seems tired and sluggish, relying more on eye-popping effects than on common sense or plot progression. Arnold plows his way through the story and the corny dialog like only he can, and for the most part does a good job. Tony Goldwyn makes a wonderful villain as the smooth and sweet-talking political backstabber. Like any good villain, he's not truly evil - he just has his own agenda and convictions to tend to. Sarah Wynter spices up the screen with her sexy persona, but sadly can't act her way out of a paper bag. That, or her uncomfortable and awkward delivery was done on purpose. Either way, listening to her talk is distracting and irritating.