SEND IN THE CLONES

It all came to a head with a sheep named Dolly, who became the first animal to be successfully cloned. Soon, speculation was rampant on when – not if – the first human would follow suit. The medical, ethical and moral issues often overlapped and clashed, and the topic is still volatile and highly controversial. On this day in 1997, President Bill Clinton signed legislation banning federally-funded human cloning research.

The key words here are ‘federally funded’. Hmmm . . ever wonder what’s going on behind closed doors at private companies?

Early on in ‘The 6th Day’ (2000), Arnold Schwarzenegger is primping in front of a mirror on his birthday. Flexing his biceps and scrutinizing his wrinles, he sighs, “I’m getting too old for this.” It’s a knowing wink to his audience, a self-effacing joke in homage to his longevity as an action film hero.

The year is 2024. Adam Gibson (Arnold) is a helicopter pilot who snags a lucrative contract with Replacement Technologies, a biotech company specializing in nonhuman cloning – but which is (surprise!) secretly producing illegal human clones. During a supposedly routine eye exam, Gibson’s brain is scanned for every piece of information and a sample of his DNA is extracted. Through plot machinations that are about as murky as the issue of how clones can be harvested in water, they make a duplicate Arnold. ‘The 6th Day’ tosses in equal parts ‘The Matrix’, ‘Blade Runner’ and ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ into a blender and presses the ‘edit’ button. The embryo for a thought-provoking premise exists, but the movie ultimately purees the moral and ethical issues of cloning in favor of typical Arnold shoot-‘em-ups, car chases and killings. But whenever a bad guy’s number is up, he gets another one, thanks to the miracle of cloning. It’s Hollywood’s dubious way of trying to placate its critics, saying, “Look, this isn’t really violence. It’s just clone violence – they’re not really humans, see? They get to come back.”

We should all be so lucky.

But ‘The 6th Day’ is not without humor. Rodney Rowland is amusing as a punk henchman with the appropriate name of Wile. E. Coyote, who keeps getting knocked off in a variety of messy ways, only to be repeatedly revived as a clone of himself who suffers recurring psychosomatic pains from his old injuries. ‘The 6th Day’ is part mindless escapism, part clever sci-fi – and Schwarzenegger delivers one of his most relaxed performances.

At least, I think that’s Arnold Schwarzenegger . . .