The 6th Day

The 6th Day is a futuristic science-fiction thriller, and it's set sooner than you think. It stars Arnold Schwarzenegger as Adam Gibson, a helicopter pilot, who, together with his friend Hank, spends his day flying rich skiers to their chosen slopes. Amazing advances have been made in science and technology The future looks bright; there are flat widescreen TVs, fridges that tell you what you need to order, and a button so you can order it instantly. Sounds great. Unfortunately, all is not as wonderful it seems.

Imagine what it would be like if you could have your recently deceased pet replaced with a replica. Would you want to? Would it be the same pet, even if it had the same personality and memories? In The 6th Day, you can go into a shopping mall and buy a replacement pet that's exactly like the original. And although it's been made illegal to clone humans, this technology is being secretly developed by an evil corporation called "Replacement Technologies" or something equally sinister. The corporation is run by a man called Drucker, played by Tony Goldwyn, and fuelled by the genius of Dr.Weir, played by Robert Duvall. The pet cloning shop, RePet is also run by Drucker as a way of selling his technology to grieving families. If you can clone a pet, you can clone a dearly departed husband or wife...

All this is far from the heart and mind of Adam Gibson, who just wants an ordinary life with his wife and daughter. Adam doesn't believe in cloning, he believes, as I do, that cloning does not create the same animal or person, because the clone will have a different consciousness, a different soul. When the family dog dies, Adam begins to question his ethics. Does he lie to his daughter and just get a RePet, or does he tell her the truth about death, that death is a necessary part of life and nothing to be afraid of? On his way home from work that day, Adam decides to go halfway and buys his daughter a lifelike doll. This "syn-pal", is, in fact, a grotesque abomination of the word "doll", and I wouldn't want one in my house. When Adam gets home, however, he finds that someone else has already had the dog cloned, and someone else is already in his house - someone who looks exactly like him...

The 6th Day is hugely entertaining. If you like seeing Arnie in action films, you'll love the scene where there are two Arnies hanging off of a helicopter that has no human pilot. As usual, he has his "I'll be back" moment, although in a slightly modified form this time. Hank, played by Michael Rapaport, has a holographic supermodel for a girlfriend, which is quite funny if you remember him in Beautiful Girls as the guy with a supermodel fixation and a dog called Elle Macphereson.

The 6th Day starts off a little slowly, but soon builds up into a very enjoyable film which is well worth seeing.