The 6th Day (2000)

1.5 out of 4

Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Rooker, Michael Rappaport, Robert Duvall, Tony Goldwyn, Sarah Wynter, Wendy Crewson, Taylor Anne Reid

Director: Roger Spottiswoode

Time: 123 mins

Arnold Schwarzenegger films were always a must-see for his fans in the 80s and early 90s. The combination of non-stop action, deadpan humour and puns, special effects, and Arnold's distinctive accent turned him into a bit of a cult figure. Films like Commando, Red Heat, and Running Man all carried this formula, and steadily added to Arnold's reputation. While his best films, commercially and critically, have been his collaborations with director James Cameron (The Terminator, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and True Lies), works like Total Recall, Predator and Eraser were also reasonably successful. Now, following an enforced lay-off due to heart surgery, Arnie is slowly easing his way back into the world of action films. 1999's End Of Days was meant to be his big comeback, but the devilish actioner was more a miss than hit affair. His latest is The 6th Day, a futuristic sci-fi film in the mould of Total Recall. It's disappointing to find that it's not much better than End Of Days, let alone reaching the standard of Eraser, his last good film. And, worst of all, the distinctive Arnold humour is all but missing from the sorry script.

The story is set in the near future. Genetic cloning is widespread, with everything from pet animals to bananas available to be regenerated. Human cloning, however, is banned, following an experiment that went wrong several years earlier. Arnold plays Adam Gibson, a pilot who takes snowboarders deep into snow-covered mountains for a wild ride on fresh powder. One night, after a charter flight to take the much despised head of cloning firm Replacement Technologies, Michael Drucker (Tony Goldwyn), into the mountains, he arrives home to find someone looking exactly like him already inside his house and enjoying a party with his wife Natalie (Wendy Crewson) and daughter Clara (Taylor Anne Reid). Soon after, a group of assassins, including Robert Marshall (Michael Rooker) and Talia Elsworth (Sarah Wynter), are out to kill him, and Gibson finds he is waist-deep in a conspiracy that also involves anti-cloning fundamentalists, his piloting partner Hank Morgan (Michael Rappaport), and the scientist behind cloning, Dr Griffin Weir (Robert Duvall).

When you go to see an Arnold film, you expect plenty of fireworks and action. What's in The 6th Day, however, is very run-of-the-mill, with a few shootouts and one lacklustre car chase. While not expecting anything to approach the scale of the firepower or explosions in True Lies or even Terminator 2, I was still rather disappointed to see the very ordinary action scenes. There is often a visceral thrill in seeng Arnold in action (the first half of Commando is a good example), but that's not in evidence here. There was one promising chase sequence involving snow-copters that was shown in the trailer, but it only turns out to be a false start. The special effects are rather average, too, with some obvious compositing work in some of the helicopter flying scenes. In this day of almost seamless computer generated imagery, this is surprising, to say the least.

When the action fails to generate excitement, there is usually Arnold's droll humour to keep proceedings light and lively. His deadpan delivery of bad puns often brings about a laugh, or at least a smile and shake of the head. In The 6th Day, this aspect is almost non-existent. I think there was one line near the end which could have been funny, but by then I couldn't even rustle up a grin.

In theme and structure, the film resembles Paul Verhoeven's Total Recall, which also starred Arnie. Both were set in the future, and both involved a group of killers that were constantly on Arnold's tail and shady agencies that could give people alternate identities. But while Total Recall's script was smart, taut, and kept you guessing as the in-your-face action scenes typical of Verhoeven exploded on screen, The 6th Day's seems rehashed from too many familiar action elements (and not enough of the sci fi), and doesn't quite know how to assemble them into a cohesive whole. There could have been an intriguing sci fi film (with action) in there, given the topicality of genetic engineering and cloning, but too often it is drowned in listless action scenes that don't quite work. Some of the futuristic aspects are intriguing, like the fridge that contains an electronic diary and a mirror that reminds you of your birthday, but these seem more like tired decorations than an integral part of the story. The same features in Total Recall were fresh and innovative by comparison.

I think Arnold has to shoulder some of the blame himself. Everyone knows he is not a great actor by any stretch of the imagination, and even better is he knows it, too. That's why a script that plays to what he does best (such as the two Terminator films) works best. In The 6th Day, poor Arnie has a harder time convincing us of his predicament than ever before, and I even noticed his accent more than usual. Perhaps the lack of lap-smacking puns highlighted this, as in his previous films you readily accepted Arnold's one-notedness as long as he came up with one memorable quip after another. The supporting characters are all quite bland, though Academy Award winner Duvall adds a touch of class as the scientist who only wants to prolong his wife's life. Tony Goldwyn (the bad guy from Ghost) is adequately slimy, but not even the usually reliable Michael Rooker (mimicking the Michael Ironside role from Total Recall) is able to generate much venom in his role as the lead assassin.

Director Roger Spottiswoode helmed the 1997 James Bond adventure Tomorrow Never Dies, which had plenty of action but also curiously the same lack of excitement that he imparts to The 6th Day. While unfair to compare him to, say, a James Cameron or a John McTiernan with regards to an eye for action, he could at least have fashioned something more interesting out of the topical concept of genetic cloning. The 6th Day itself turns out to be a semi-clone of Total Recall, but is nowhere near as good.

(c) Joe Wong (21 January 2001)