I can always console myself by remembering that Spielberg had Hook, Lucas had Episodes I and II, Lynch had Dune, Demme had Beloved, Clint had Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, and even Scorsese had New York, New York. Now another Master has delivered his first heartbreaker, as Michael Bay presents his first Bruckheimer-less opus, The Island, opening July 22nd nationwide.

And no, I’m not using “Master” facetiously. Indeed, Bay is the most unfairly maligned major auteur of the last quarter-century; his chief crime against “film geekdom” being the fact that he makes the sort of action spectaculars that draw the wrath of the internet film community, where the nerd squad myopically scrutinizes all things escapist at the expense of pretty much the rest of....well, everything else. Were Bay a director of bland mainstream sitcoms, like, say, Shawn Levy or Adam Schenkman or Howard Deutsch, he’d likely pass unnoticed for his supposed transgressions. But as an action director, Bay has spent the last full decade curiously being criticized for making action films that are supposedly too fast.-- “He can’t hold a shot for more than 5 seconds!” “He’s all style and no substance!” “Too loud...too bombastic.” But so, really, what? These same charges were leveled at Michael Mann, Adrian Lyne, Ridley Scott, and co. almost 25 years ago, and look at their cinematic legacies now. Just as the wave of predominantly British ad world-schooled stylists of the late ‘70s/early ‘80s ushered in a new filmic language, the commercial-and-music video directors of today have evolved from there with a style that reflects our fractured times. And really, how much nuance does Bad Boys II require?

As the above paragraph suggests, lonely is the serious film fanatic who actually appreciates the Bay aesthetic-- lightning pacing, gorgeous bold colors, ear-shattering soundtrack bombast, breathtaking individual shots that are nonetheless shattered into a thousand different edits and angles, and the all-important thematic element of great-looking people doing awesome things, and doing them better than anyone else. Where most contemporary escapist fare offers timid, reluctant heroes on an earnest quest, Bay just says “fuck it” and makes protagonists out of the bullies who used to flush your head down the toilet in high school. In a world of Frodos and Peter Parkers, seeing Will Smith and Martin Lawrence toss body parts around without abandon, quipping all the while, in Bad Boys II is damn near revolutionary, or at least exhilarating in a totally disreputable way.

It’s with great disappointment then, that I have to report that The Island is a curiously dreary experience; a cold, icy, and often leaden letdown that feels less like “Bay Unleashed” than it feels like some clunky virtual reality dud that Brett Leonard (Lawnmower Man, Virtuosity) would have cranked out a decade ago.

Ewan McGregor, sporting an awesome spiked hairdo, stars as Lincoln Six Echo, denizen of some half-assed Utopian future world in which everyone wears white track suits left over from THX-1138 and occupies curiously chintzy sets that look about as phony as the supposed Mars world of Total Recall some 15 years ago. Considering the film’s astronomical budget, this future “world” appears to consist of a few glass elevator shafts, a few hallways, a lunchroom, and Dan O’Herlihy’s front lobby from Robocop 2. Anyway, not all is as it seems in this sterile world, and Lincoln and his goofy, unfunny comic relief pals are started to grow suspicious of a “lottery” engineered to give them hope and keep them unquestioning of authority, in which “winners” are supposedly transported to a beautiful tropical island.

The sinister truth, of course, is that all of this is a ruse created by the sinister head honcho, Dr. Merrick (Sean Bean? As a villain? No fuckin’ way!) Lincoln and crew are actually bioengineered “clones” of the rich and successful, harvested to one day supply body parts to prolong their wealthy, real-life versions’ lives. Rather than some future world, McGregor and Co. are really in some ill-explained hidden bunker in the vaguely (very vaguely) futuristic American Southwest. The “island” does not exist, but rather the “randomly selected” winners (including an underused but effective Michael Clarke Duncan) are taken backstage where Merrick and his doctors and technicians can carve them up for spare parts.

The AWESOME Scarlett Johansson does what she can to lighten up this off-putting opening section, as Jordan Two Delta, another, less questioning clone and McGregor’s tentative love interest. Not only is interpersonal contact forbidden in Merrick’s world, but the clones haven’t even been programmed with an awareness of sex. Meaning instead of hot McGregor/Johansson boot-knocking, we’re instead treated to a truly dorky (and crass) product placement sequence where the couple takes out their sexual frustration by pummeling each other via some XBOX virtual reality game. Hello, 1995!

Lincoln starts to question authority, developing thought processes that go beyond his programming, also aided along by a human menial worker (Steve Buscemi, terrific) who hints at the sinister nature of the place. When Jordan’s number is up for the “island” (her real-life, supermodel doppleganger needs some organs), McGregor and Johansson bust the fuck out and go on the lam in 2019 Los Angeles (or, er, Detroit, where much of this was curiously filmed.)

It is only here, nearly an hour into the film, that Bay finally starts to show signs of life-- hell, signs of being himself. While the Utopian sequences do visually resemble the psych-testing montages of Armageddon, and Mauro Fiore’s (Training Day) DP work is masterful throughout, that opening act is not only cold and unpleasant, but woefully derivative of other, better sci-fi movies (THX, Gattaca, Logan’s Run, etc.). The screenplay, by Caspian Tredwell-Owen, Alex Kurtzman, and Roberto Orci, is an unoriginal mishmash that perhaps no amount of Bayian flourish, Bruckheimered or not, could have solved.

As Merrick/Bean hires a bad-ass crew of mercs, led by the always-powerful Djimon Hounsou, the Master at last unleashes the full Bay, settling into a decent chase picture, replete with loud car chases, shootouts, dangling from buildings, etc. This is what we want from a Bay film, not a half-assed Gattaca knockoff. It’s clear the director is on more solid footing here, jacking up the soundtrack to an insane degree and giving us the ALWAYS-AWESOME sight of badass villains glowering against giant skies/sunsets in aviator glasses while swami music blares on the soundtrack. So what if the image was already done in Black Hawk Down, Tears of the Sun, and Bad Boys? It’s always a crowd-pleaser. And at least one of these chases, with McGregor and Johansson, on the bed of an 18-wheeler, pushing giant industrial axels off the back and into oncoming pursuit cars, would be an unqualified masterpiece were it not pretty much a carbon copy of the extended truck chase in Bad Boys II. And the BLACK GOALIE MASKS on the cops? Heat-level cool. Also of note in this section is GARY NICKENS, who also OWNED Bad Boys II, as a creatively-goateed mercenary who ought to be auditioning for “The Kerry King Story.”

Still, one has to ask why a futuristic set-up, with underground worlds and mysterious islands and cloning eventually turns into a simple, not-very-sci-fi car chase picture. With the exception of an over-CGI’d chase on futuristic flying motorcycles (cribbed from Return of the Jedi), the latter half may as well take place in 1987. Once McGregor tracks down his “real” self, in the form of a cocky, race-car driving playboy, Bay delivers some not-bad comedy and McGregor has plenty of fun playing off himself. Sca-Jo spends the last reels, in true Bay form, wandering around sleepily in hot outfits (see also The Rock, Armageddon, Pearl Harbor, where Bay’s love interests mope around and sit out the second halves) before returning with Clone McGregor to wreack havoc on Bean back at his clone compound.

Here Bay falters again, and badly, with a supposedly heartfelt finale involving the fate of the clones; I won’t give it away, but I will say that Bay lays on one of his aw-shucks cornball finales right out of Armageddon and Pearl Harbor, where it worked due to the cornball nature of the films themselves. (The juxtaposition of cruel comedy and violence with seemingly earnest patriotism/Americana in Bay should inspire a library of analysis someday.) Considering the aloofness of all that’s come before it, and the cipher-like nature of every clone (save the two great-looking leads,) there’s no resonance whatsoever, especially given a completely arbitrary 180 by one of the chief villains that allows this to happen. It also doesn’t help that the last shots look like something out of a 32-year-old Woody Allen movie.

Hopefully this watchable but clunky mixed bag is just a temporary misstep for Bay. Hell, Spielberg followed Hook with Schindler’s List, and Scorsese followed New York, New York with Raging Bull. Here’s to hoping that Bay’s next is his Raging Bull. No more awkward sci-fi, no more cloning, just the good-looking people being awesome. Just bring Will and Martin, a hot chick in Asian-themed dresses with red lipstick, some body parts to throw around, a Ferrari, some hazy sunsets, villains with cool shades, some bold greens and blues, and definitely bring Gary Nickens. Just leave the goddamn white track suits home next time.