The 6th Day

After 20 years, his producers seemed to be having trouble coming up with new big action thrillers for Arnold Schwarzenegger; this 2000 release was the next to last one he made except for the third Terminator, which I don’t count because it was a sequel. At least the producers gave us a villain who was neither a terrorist nor a machine this time, eh?

In The 6th Day, set a few years in our future, the Governator plays Adam Gibson, partners with Hank Morgan (Michael Rappaport) in a leading edge helicopter taxi service. One beautiful day the two are hired to fly multi-billionaire Michael Drucker (Tony Goldwyn) up to a nearby mountain for some skiing. Actually Gibson is hired but he and Morgan switch without telling Drucker’s people as Adam needs to run an errand.

There’s a big surprise when he gets home to his lovely wife (Wendy Crewson) and daughter and it isn’t just the surprise birthday party for him: he’s already inside celebrating. Then, after four hard cases come along and try to kill him, Ah-nold is off and running. We already know who’s chasing him: Drucker is sponsoring cloning research by superscientist Griffin Weir (Robert Duvall), and while the research has pretty much succeeded cloning humans is still against the law. No one outside Drucker’s inner circle can be allowed to know about the active program.

6th Day was written by the husband and wife team of Carmac and Marianne Wibberly and directed by veteran Roger Spottiswoode; it’s the first big production for the writers, who went on to write the I Spy movie, the Charlie’s Angels and Bad Boys sequels, Tim Allen’s Shaggy Dog remake and Nic Cage’s National Treasure, while Spottiswoode previously gave us the Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies, the Robin Williams/Kurt Russell The Best of Times and Sly Stallone Stop! Or My Mother Will Shoot comedies and the AIDs docudrama And the Band Played On.

Here the first half is entertaining because we know what’s happening but Schwarzenegger’s character is struggling to figure it out for himself and then the movie kicks into top gear after the two Adams connect and work together to take down Drucker. Dr. Weir gives a major assist after finally growing himself a conscience.

Of the big guys post-True Lies action flicks, The 6th Day is my favorite though it doesn’t really reach the same heights as that one, Last Action Hero or the first Terminator.

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