By Geno McGahee
“You cloned the wrong man.” – Adam Gibson (Arnold Schwarzenegger)
In 1994, Arnold Schwarzenegger had his last big hit of the nineties with TRUE LIES. The follow up films underperformed including JUNIOR, ERASER, JINGLE ALL THE WAY and END OF DAYS. For the most part, Schwarzenegger released quality films (Not JUNIOR), but the audience just wasn’t there for his work as they once were. In 2000, THE 6TH DAY was released on an 83 million dollar budget, but would only return 34 million of it in the end and would further remove Arnie from the big time.
We begin in the future at an XFL game. XFL was the creation of WWE (WWF) owner, Vince McMahon, with the hopes of taking on the established NFL, but it quickly crashed and burned. Over the years, Arnie and Vince had a chummy relationship and it was easy to put the XFL into THE 6TH DAY as a cross-promotional tool. It helped neither, but, in all honesty, Vince’s attempt was an ambitious and decent one and it could have worked. Perhaps it would have had he stuck at it a little longer.
At the game, the star quarterback suffers a terrible injury and as he’s rushed away in an ambulance, Robert Marshall (Michael Rooker) kills him and the decision is made to clone him and put him back on the field. Cloning humans is illegal but animal cloning is accepted and actually done at the mall. Adam Gibson (Schwarzenegger), a helicopter pilot, visits one of the cloning stores when his daughter’s dog dies, but he sees the danger. When he returns home, he is surprised to discover that there is another Adam Gibson in his house, with his family, and even getting romantic with his wife, Natalie (Wendy Crewson). Something is really wrong.
Adam is approached by Vincent (Terry Crews) and Talia (Sarah Wynter). They inform him of a cloning violation and that he needs to come with them. They knock him out and plan to kill him, but he breaks free and the chase is on. Marshall and Wiley (Rodney Rowland) join the chase and do what they can to kill Gibson but he is resourceful.
Michael Drucker (Tony Goldwyn) is secretly cloning humans with the help of Dr. Weir (Robert Duvall) and having two Adam Gibsons is a threat to their organization. Drucker, himself, is a clone, and needs to keep that under wraps as well. The more that Adam digs into the group that is hunting him, the closer he gets to Drucker, leading to a showdown with the lives of Natalie and their daughter, Clara (Taylor Anne Reid) hanging in the balance.
Drucker vs. Gibson 1 and Gibson 2 brings out some of the charm that Schwarzenegger always brings. Great action sequences with a mixture of humor bring the fun factor that we have come to love in Arnie films. Sarah Wynter was a great villain in this and despite how great Michael Rooker is, he was overshadowed by her. She had this evil presence that really played well in this film. It was difficult to see Terry Crews in a serious role after all of the zany stuff he’s done and continues to do. I’m a big Crews fan, but I just couldn’t buy him as a tough bad guy. He has the look, but I keep thinking about him in CLICK, singing in his car.
Tony Goldwyn and Robert Duvall were great in their roles and they worked off each other very well. THE 6TH DAY had a lot of the elements that should have made this a bigger hit. It’s not as good as TOTAL RECALL or THE RUNNING MAN, but this is a quality action/sci-fi film. There is a great balance of humor and action and the overall design of the film is impressive.
I highly recommend THE 6TH DAY. Timing just wasn’t on its side. Schwarzenegger’s star was dimming at this point and people were looking elsewhere for their action stars. This film has grown a great appreciation from action and sci-fi fans over the years and recouped a great deal of the lost money with the video store run it had. It’s definitely worth a watch.
Rating: 7.5/10
