Clonan the Barbarian

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Source: Sony Pictures Entertainment

Mix amoral scientists, religious fundamentalists, evil corporate moguls, super-duper-high-tech gizmos and honking huge biceps, and you have Arnold Schwarzenegger's latest foray into science fiction, The 6th Day, which opens in theaters today. In the future--which the filmmakers assure us is nearer than we think--cloning will be commonplace, although human cloning will be banned. The title refers to the day in Genesis on which God created man, a dead giveaway that illegal human cloning goes on anyway, for fun and profit. The double-trouble consequences provide the plot and give Schwarzenegger a chance to act opposite himself, which should have included an arm wrestling match for the ages, but doesn't.

As has been said about many science-fiction flicks, it's the kind of thing you'll like if you like this kind of thing. But any claims for imminent scientific veracity are overblown. As in most cloning operas, the replicants in The 6th Day come out of the oven baked way better than science can really cook. They develop, reach adulthood and upload their source human's memories in about two hours, which makes sitting through a movie of that length feel like underachieving. In the real near future, scientists will probably still be counting sheep, struggling merely to increase the dismal success rate of Dolly-style cloning. Memories extra.

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