THE ISLAND – Review

To be honest, Michael Jai White headlines a lot of action flicks that many would consider beneath their taste level. But he’s really good at these things and always fun to watch when you’re in the mood for a good guy kicking a bunch of bad guy butts in a vehicle that allows your higher cerebral functions to relax and enjoy some time off from their usual duties. THE ISLAND is another from his formulaic wheelhouse. Among the many movies and TV series that have borne this title before, this one will rank as the most… recent.

White plays an L.A. cop who grew up on a tropical island. When he learns that his brother was killed, he returns to find the one what done done him in. After he’d left to graze in a bigger pasture, the island had been taken over by a psycho mega-thug (Edoardo Costa), running a full range of illicit businesses that gave jobs to many but put all in fear of their lives, and rendered the police hopelessly over-matched. Costa quickly establishes shockingly sadistic methods for ruling his empire, never hesitating to dispatch any underlings who let him down.

So anyone who has seen any of these action opuses (or is it “opi”?) knows what must happen from there. Some good people will be threatened and/or killed en route to White’s vanquishing the Evil among them as he, Scott Adkins, Mark Dacascos, Olivier Gruner, Dolph Lundgren, et. al. have done so many times before. What matters is that White reliably delivers what his fans expect.

The action sequences are frequent and gritty, with a slightly above average gore component, as these things go. The tropical setting is another asset, providing a lovely backdrop for the decidedly UN-lovely things that occur thereupon. Plus a sidebar of made-up exotic local culture in this made-up exotic locale.

Now that you know what you’re getting, skip it or adjust your brain downwards for this 90-minute piece of guilty-pleasure viewing.

THE ISLAND opens Friday, July 21, in theaters and is available on demand and on digital.  

RATING: 2.5 out of 4 stars