The 6th Day

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For other uses, see The Sixth Day (disambiguation).
The 6th Day
The 6th Day (2000 film).jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed byRoger Spottiswoode
Written byCormac Wibberley & Marianne Wibberley
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyPierre Mignot
Edited by
Music byTrevor Rabin
Production
companies
Distributed bySony Pictures Releasing
Release date
  • October 28, 2000 (2000-10-28) (TIFF)[1]
  • November 17, 2000 (2000-11-17) (United States)
Running time
124 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$82 million[2]
Box office$96.1 million[2][3]

The 6th Day is a 2000 American science fiction action film directed by Roger Spottiswoode and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tony Goldwyn, Michael Rapaport, and Robert Duvall. In the film, a family man of the future is illegally cloned by accident as part of a vast conspiracy involving a shady billionaire businessman, and is thrust into a struggle to clear his name and protect his family from the conspirators who seek to keep the cloning a secret. The title refers to the Christian Genesis creation narrative, where God created mankind on the sixth day. The film was Terry Crews' acting debut.

Schwarzenegger received a salary of $25 million for his role in the film.[4] The film opened at #4 in North America and made $13 million in its opening weekend.

Plot[]

At some point in the indeterminate near future, the cloning of animals and human organs has become routine. Cloning entire humans, however, is prohibited by what are known as "Sixth Day" laws.

Billionaire Michael Drucker, owner of cloning corporation Replacement Technologies, hires charter pilot Adam Gibson and partner Hank Morgan for a ski trip. Due to Drucker's prominence, the two must first undergo blood and eye tests to verify their aptitude. On the day of Drucker's arrival, Adam finds that his family dog Oliver has died, and Hank offers to pose as him to fly Drucker instead to allow Adam time to have the pet cloned by RePet. After visiting a "RePet" shop, he remains unconvinced and purchases an animatronic doll, a SimPal, named Cindy instead. On the ski trip, however, Drucker and Hank are shot by one of the skiers.

Adam returns home and discovers that not only has Oliver already been cloned, but a purported clone of himself is with his family, along with another SimPal Cindy. Replacement Technologies security agents Marshall, Talia, Vincent and Wiley arrive with the intention of killing Adam. Adam kills Talia and Wiley in the ensuing chase and escapes, but both are later cloned. Adam goes to the police, but they do not believe his story, as the clone already reported his car stolen, and deem him insane. They call the security agents, but he escapes and seeks refuge at an alive Hank's apartment. Hank hardly believes his story, but when he shows him the clone Adam he helps him. Adam contemplates killing his clone but finds himself unable to do it and they return to Hank's apartment, where they are ambushed by Tripp, the skier who shot Drucker and Hank. Tripp shoots and kills Hank, but is mortally injured by Adam. Revealed as a religious anti-cloning extremist, Tripp informs Adam that Hank was a clone, since he killed the original one on the mountaintop earlier that day, to be able to kill Drucker, who was also a clone, and there is now a new Drucker clone. Marshall and the other agents arrive on the scene and Tripp informs Adam that he gained his information from informants that work in the cloning laboratory and that he knows their identities. Tripp then commits suicide by shooting himself in the head to avoid being captured by Marshall and the others in order to prevent his memory from being scanned. The agents begin to attack Adam but he is able to disable Marshall and Talia again and steals Talia's thumb.

Seeking answers, Adam sneaks into Replacement Technologies with Talia's thumb and finds Dr. Griffin Weir, the scientist behind Drucker's illegal human-cloning technology. Weir confirms Tripp's information about the cloning, adding that to resurrect Drucker, the incident had to be covered up and Adam was cloned because they mistakenly believed he had been killed when he and Hank switched places, which they discovered only later and had Hank cloned as well, which is also why the agents are trying to kill Adam. Weir explains that Drucker – who already died years before – could lose all of his assets if the revelation became public, since clones are devoid of all rights. Sympathetic with Adam's plight, Weir gives him a memory disk (syncording) of the Drucker clone but warns him that Drucker may go after the other Adam instead, putting Adam's family in danger. Weir also discovers that Drucker has been engineering cloned humans with fatal diseases as an insurance policy against betrayal. Upon finding out that his own wife was one such victim, Weir confronts Drucker and resigns. Drucker reluctantly shoots him dead after promising to clone both him and his wife.

Drucker's agents abduct the Gibson family during Adam's daughters school recital and Adam comes face-to-face with his clone. The two reluctantly team up and devise a plan to destroy Drucker's facility. While Adam wrecks the security system and gets himself captured, the clone sneaks in, plants a bomb and rescues his family. Drucker, however, tells Adam that he himself is the clone; the other Adam is the original one. Initially doubtful, Drucker proves that Adam is the clone by showing hidden physical changes below the eye, marking how many times somebody has been cloned. Enraged, Adam fights off Drucker's agents and Drucker is mortally wounded while Talia, Wiley, Vincent and Marshall are killed for the final time. Drucker manages to clone himself before he dies but the malfunctioning equipment causes the new Drucker clone to be incomplete and extremely deformed. As the cloned Adam fights his way to the rooftop, he is rescued via helicopter by the real Adam as Drucker falls to his death before the facility explodes.

Now having a more moderate view of cloning, the real Adam arranges for his clone to move to Argentina to start a satellite office of their charter business. The clone's existence is kept a secret, especially upon discovering that his DNA has no embedded illnesses, giving him a chance at a full life, since he was of no political value to Drucker. As a parting gift to the Gibson family, the clone gives them Hank's RePet cat, Sadie. The real Adam gives the clone a flying send-off.

Cast[]

Production[]

Filming[]

The 6th Day was filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and Toronto, Ontario, Canada.[5]

Release[]

Home media[]

The 6th Day was released on VHS and DVD in the United States and Canada on March 27, 2001. The movie was released on video on the following dates:

Release Date Territory Format Notes
January 22, 2002 U.S. and Canada DVD Special Edition
October 28, 2003 U.S. and Canada DVD Schwarzenegger Action Pack: The 6th Day and Last Action Hero

A Blu-ray version was released in the United States and Canada on April 8, 2008. It includes two featurettes but lacks the commentary from the DVD release.[6]

Reception[]

Box office[]

The 6th Day premiered at the Tokyo International Film Festival.[1] It was released theatrically on November 17, 2000. Box Office Mojo reports the worldwide gross at $96,085,477,[2] while Variety reports $116 million.[3]

Critical response[]

On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 40% based on reviews from 117 critics, with a rating of 5.9/10. The site's consensus reads: "This offering from Arnold Schwarzenegger contains an intriguing, disturbing premise, but the film's execution is too routine and formulaic to make good use of it."[7] On Metacritic the film has a score of 49 out of 100 based on reviews from 30 critics.[8] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C" on an A+ to F scale.[9]

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave The 6th Day three out of four stars, remarking that it is not in the same league as Total Recall and Terminator 2: Judgment Day, but that it nevertheless qualifies as a serious science fiction film. He also found problems with the cloning as depicted in the film, saying that "[his] problem with both processes is that while the resulting clone ... might know everything I know ... I myself would still be over here in the old container."[10] Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times disliked the generic appearance of the film and Schwarzenegger's typecasting as an action hero.[11] Turan gave the film two out of five stars.[7] [12]

The 6th Day earned three Razzie Award nominations for Schwarzenegger: Worst Actor (as the real Adam), Worst Supporting Actor (as the clone of Adam) and Worst Screen Couple (Schwarzenegger as Adam and Schwarzenegger as the clone), but lost all three to Battlefield Earth.[13] The film was also nominated four times at the 27th Saturn Awards,[14] but lost to X-Men for Best Actor and Best Science Fiction Film, Hollow Man for Best Special Effects and How the Grinch Stole Christmas for Best Make-Up.

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b Herskovitz, Jon (2000-10-30). "Tokyo pledges to cut red tape for lensing". Variety. Retrieved 2014-08-01.
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b c "The 6th Day". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2014-08-01.
  3. ^ Jump up to: a b Harris, Dana (2002-07-17). "Arnold tells Morris agency hasta la vista". Variety. Retrieved 2014-08-01.
  4. ^ Grover, Ronald (2002-01-25). "Schwarzenegger Flexes Some Muscle". BusinessWeek. Retrieved 2017-04-07.
  5. ^ Barbara Vancheri (November 17, 2000). "Schwarzenegger battles the bad clone guys in 'The 6th Day'". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "The 6th Day," shot mainly in Vancouver
  6. ^ Jane, Ian (2008-04-16). "The 6th Day (Blu-ray)". DVD Talk. Retrieved 2014-08-01.
  7. ^ Jump up to: a b "The 6th Day (2000)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2014-08-01.
  8. ^ "The 6th Day". Metacritic.
  9. ^ "Cinemascore". Archived from the original on 2018-12-20.
  10. ^ Ebert, Roger (17 November 2000). "The 6th Day". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 2015-02-18.
  11. ^ Turan, Kenneth (17 November 2000). "Arnold Lands in a Double Bind". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2015-02-18.
  12. ^ McCarthy, Todd (10 November 2000). "The 6th Day". Variety.
  13. ^ Armstrong, Mark (2001-02-12). "News/Raspberry "Battlefields" Forever". E! Online. Retrieved 2014-08-01.
  14. ^ "X-Men Leads Sci-fi Awards Pack". ABC News. 2001-04-04. Retrieved 2014-08-01.

External links[]

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