The Sixth Day (2000)
Directed by Roger Spottiswoode
Cloning; Genetic engineering; Genetic memory; Thriller
An accidental cloning leads to an action-packed conspiracy and inquiry into the dangers of genetic technologies
When the family pet dies, Adam Gibson (Arnold Schwarzenegger) reluctantly agrees to have the dog replicated. While on that errand, he allows his partner Hank to assume his identity, so that Hank can pilot billionaire Michael Drucker to a remote venue. The next thing that Adam remembers is waking up in a cab, having inexplicably lost several hours. Returning home, he is shocked to realize that inside is an apparent double of himself. Before Adam can confront the imposter, three assassins arrive to eliminate him. Adam has been cloned in violation of the “Sixth Day Laws,” and those who are responsible want to eliminate him before the two Adams meet and reveal the transgression. Hank, not Adam, should have been cloned: both Hank (mistaken for Adam) and Drucker are killed, and Adam is cloned to cover up Drucker’s subsequent replication. Adam manages to elude the assassins who attack him outside his home, but when his family is kidnapped as leverage, Adam unites with his double in order to end the pursuit permanently. He finds that Drucker cannot reveal that he himself is a clone, as he would lose the rights and property of “real” humans. Drucker also reveals that the character we have been following, not his “clone,” is the true double, and proposes that he kill the original Adam and assume his life. Adam struggles with the knowledge that the life he’s fighting for is not his own, but refuses to allow Drucker to continue his cloning project.
Some of the social implications of cloning are wittily explored, but the movie gives a wholly false impression of how human cloning might work having Adam reappear from the cloning process as an adult man (a second fully grown Arnold Schwarzenegger), with his lifetime of memories artificially reimplanted in the clone’s head. Until he discovers that he is the double, Adam expresses distrust of clones: he does not want to clone the family pet because he is afraid the dog might return altered or without a soul. Adam’s initial fear might stem from the failure of the original human cloning projects that led to the “Sixth Day Laws”; although never shown in the film, these initial experiments are described as failures, and the cloned humans as beings that had to be put down. Nor does Adam’s opinion about clones reverse suddenly, once he realizes that he himself is one: he gives up his family and reconsiders his own identity based on this information. This movie succeeds in evoking the sympathy for clones that Adam seems to lack by presenting the narrative from the clone’s point-of-view. Cloning is shown as potentially positive – helping sick children – and as dangerous: in the hands of greedy, amoral individuals like Drucker, the ability to clone humans is a way of wielding power over others. For instance, Drucker integrates terminal diseases into the genes of the clones, so that they will die quickly; as long as the clones remain loyal to him, he will continue to replicate them. Although he publicly espouses cloning as a noble means of preserving life, he tells Adam that cloning should be used to preserve the “best” people, like Mozart. While Drucker sees this technology as “picking up where god left off,” Adam recognizes the danger in allowing a man like Drucker – or anyone, for that matter – to determine who is worthy of perpetuation.
Evaluation: This is a surprisingly intelligent action film, and in spite of some failed cinematographic experimentation and unnecessary story arcs, the movie largely coheres into a focused exploration of the dangers of genetic technologies as well as the effect of cloning on cloned individuals.
– Natalie Champ