The 6th Day (2000)

Arnold Schwarzenegger stars in this one as Adam Gibson, a pilot and father.  Set in the near future where cloning has been outlawed (an important plot point) he switches flights with his partner.  When he comes home that night he discovers an exact duplicate of himself with his family.  It seems that he was cloned when the wealthy man who chartered his plane was killed, but they didn’t know that he wasn’t on board.  The rest of the movie is the Gibson character running around trying to protect his family and get his life back.  This is complicated by the fact that those who cloned him are trying to kill him to cover the crime. 

This is one of the last decent action movies that Arnold Schwarzenegger made before he retired to politics.  I have mixed feelings about it.  The story is a solid bit of sci-fi and action.  You get cool gadgets and technology that is mixed with enough explosions and fights to be satisfying as well.  I also thought the plot was engaging and has enough twists and turns to make the movie worth a watch.  Fans will also get a kick out of the couple of nods to earlier movies (yes there is a Terminator reference).  That said I think that Schwarzenegger shows his age a little bit here.  The action isn’t quite up to what we had seen in the past and the fight scenes aren’t up to the level that his earlier flicks.  Then again he was in his 50s by the time he shot this one and getting old is what it is.  Even with that caveat this is still superior to many of the frenetic shaky camera movies from the decade that are supposed to pass for exciting (the Bourne movies come to mind).

Arnold isn’t the only recognizable actor in the movie.  It boasts what I consider to be a pretty impressive cast.  You have the always-reliable Tony Goldwyn as the villain Drucker.  He chews the scenery a bit, but in a good action movie bad guy kind of way.  I also was really happy to see Michael Rooker as the main henchmen to Goldwyn’s Drucker.  He gets a couple of excellent one-liners and holds his own against Arnold’s performance.  Finally we have Robert Duvall giving the movie it’s heart.  He plays the scientist that gets caught up in all the cloning experiments.  He doesn’t get that much screen time, but he uses it well. 

Being a big budget action movie we need to talk about the special effects.  There is a lot of digital effects used here but it is used well.  For a movie that is 10 years old it holds up pretty well.  The aircraft look great and the effects used for the futuristic guns is also solid.  But my favorite stuff has to do with the clones transformations from blanks to the people they are replacing.  This is a nifty and creepy effect.  We get a bit of practical effects to support the digital (Goldwyn’s partially finished clone comes to mind) that are pulled off pretty well. 

Is this as good as Schwarzenegger’s classic movies?  Heck no it isn’t.  Like I said he is showing his age a bit and the action suffers somewhat from that.  But if I compare it to the movies that were coming out around the same time I think it is a solid effort.  I was able to pick up my copy of the DVD on the cheap and if you can do that as well I think you should.  I’m not going to revisit it like Predator or the first couple Terminator movies, but it is fun.

2 ½ out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer

© Copyright 2011 John Shatzer