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Special Features
- Making-of featurette
- Animatic comparison
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
The One sets a martial arts milestone by pitting action star Jet Li against his greatest enemy: himself. This sci-fi thriller establishes a "multiverse" consisting of countless parallel universes, each populated by variants of every individual. Li plays a renegade from the Multiverse Agency, illegally traveling through "quantum tunnels" to eliminate all versions of himself until only two remain, each sharing the cumulative strength of their "parallel universe versions." This mumbo-jumbo inspires a variety of dazzling special effects, and director James Wong (with cowriter and fellow X-Files alumnus Glen Morgan) injects clever humor into the Matrix-derivative premise. Carla Gugino is wasted as the "good" Li's obligatory love interest, but The One will appeal to action fans with its fast-paced pursuit between the evil Li and two agents (Delroy Lindo, Jason Statham) assigned to stop his trans-universal killing spree. It's a one-gimmick movie, best enjoyed with your brain in neutral. --Jeff Shannon
The 6th Day
For a movie about cloning, it's only appropriate that The 6th Day, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, is instilled with a strong sense of déjà vu, namely from Arnold's previous "Who am I?" outing, Total Recall. In that movie, Arnold is a normal Joe who discovers that his entire reality has been co-opted by an evil conspiracy, and has to take his life back by force. The same premise applies here for Roger Spottiswoode's clever if overlong sci-fi thriller--Arnold thinks he's a regular guy leading a regular life, until a twist of fate puts him on the lam from a vast conspiracy that's replaced him with a clone. While he's trying to evade the evil genetics corporation--and its trendy, deadly, clone-friendly assassins (who don't care how many times they're killed: there's more where that came from)--his double is snuggling at home with his wife and daughter. And new legislation outlaws the existence of human clones, so somebody's got to go. But who gets to be live and who gets to be the dead Memorex man? Why does said genetics corporation want to clone people? How does the kindly scientist (Robert Duvall) fit in? What's the mystery behind the slick billionaire (Tony Goldwyn) who runs everything? It's all kind of irrelevant in the end, as long as it provides a chance for Arnold to indulge in some energetic mayhem and explosive action. What distinguishes The 6th Day is its sneaky, humorous--and chilling--look at the near future, taking everyday technological advances and turning them up just a couple notches, envisioning an era with cloned pets, virtual girlfriends, and computers running most everything, from the refrigerator to your car. Arnold is supposed to be a throwback to the "real" world--you can tell because he cherishes his vintage, navigation-system-free Cadillac--but as usual, he just brings his behemoth presence to the role and not much else. Still, he's a friendly enough hero, and he rolls with the punches (literally) all the way through to the end. Too bad the film overstays its welcome by about half an hour--a little shorter and it could have been a breezy sci-fi/action romp. With scene stealers Michael Rooker, Sarah Wynter, and Rod Rowland as the trio of cloned assassins who always come back--again and again. --Mark Englehart
Product Description
Customer Reviews
_The One_ enters this select company both by virtue of originality (I have seen the general premise once or twice before, but never on film) and because even had someone attempted this before, it couldn't have been done as well.
The basic idea of _The One_ is that there are a large number of parallel dimensions, each with a slightly different history (in this one, George Bush became president; in another, it might have been Dole, Gore, or someone even less likely). In each of these universes exists a parallel version of ourselves, as we would be if we'd grown up there. In one of these universes, dimensional travel has been perfected; people can go from one to the other. And one of those people discovers that if he kills off his duplicates, he becomes stronger, faster, smarter; there is some kind of mystical connection between all these parallels, and the power of all is divided up among those that are left; accordingly, he's travelling through the dimensions, slowly eliminating all his parallel selves. The hero of our story is his last remaining duplicate, who has been trying to understand what has been happening to him recently.
Scenes involving such superhuman abilities simply couldn't be done well before this, and few actors other than Jet Li would be able to pull them off convincingly even with special-effects assistance. The pacing is excellent, the plotline fascinating (the bad guy's being chased by a couple of dimensional cops who have an additional concern beyond the fact that this guy's committing multiple homicides: according to some dimensional theory, if he succeeds in eliminating all the others, it will cause a cataclysm), and the action is simply top-notch.
The ending is surprising, and extremely cool. It leaves the possibility of a sequel open, but doesn't require one, either. Highly recommended. If action's your thing, this one will deliver.
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