Let's be honest, The 6th Day would like to believe its quite a clever cautionary tale about the perils of human cloning, of playing God, but the reality is that it's built around the gimmick of two Arnold Schwarzenegger's in one movie and being able to get away with it - surely an action junkie's special kind of dream? The only problem is that Roger Spottiswoode's film is so hokey, so cheesy, and so desperately trying to trick us into believing it's got something to say, that it rarely can escape the schlocky, B-movie dumb action theatrics that the script and direction often fall back on - yet unlike Arnie's best, it's not half as much fun.

To the movie's…

I might be back

First time watch: September 2004
Source: Amazon Prime

The 6th Day is a science fiction action film from the year 2000 starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Robert Duvall and Michael Rooker set against a near future backdrop inwhich illegal cloning is taking place.

Theres few Arnold films that are actually good and I can enjoy (Terminator, Last Action Hero). This is not one of them. I hadn't watched this film in 15 years and having seen two Arnold's fighting it out in Last Action Hero I thought it could be fun to see another Arnold double act. Unfortunately this a simple case of a half decent plot cloaking an awful and predictable action film that includes plenty of…

Back when the world was rioting over animal cloning, because global warming hadn't been invented yet and the we ran on a 56kbps modem. We got this Arnie sci-fi action flick set in the future where nacho flavoured bananas are a thing, because that's the real American dream.

This was a failed attempt at cloning Arnie's glory years, while still trying to shovel some modern commentary into the mix. He plays Adam Gibson; one of those guys who's hell bent against cloning and new technology (until he needs them). He's supposed to be the voice of the audience, but mostly comes off as a crotchety OK boomer dad joke.

The film raises a few interesting questions regarding cloning, but isn't…

One of the few Arnies I'd never seen, mainly due to its dreadful reputation and the fact that I don't think much of Roger Spottiswoode's films.

And it's not at all good, is it. The concept is quite good but is used to, at first, try and resemble Total Recall, and then used to just bore the crap out of me during an endless third act. Cannot believe how long this film felt, nor why they made it this long in the first place.

Even Arnie doesn't seem much bothered by this, and nobody else is really making the effort or taking this at all seriously, aside from Robert Duvall, who's seemingly acting in a different film to everyone else.…

My first watch of this one. I didn't see it when it was released in theatres or on video shortly thereafter. As I recall, it sort of bombed and was largely met by audiences with a bit of an eyeroll. The Arnold theatrical market was becoming saturated at the turn of the century. It didn't matter what the film content around him was--religious thriller, comedy, sci-fi action, another attack from SkyNet--mass audiences were simply less interested in Arnie.

THE 6TH DAY was right in the middle of that filmgoer indifference. This film's angle--clones. Arnold accidentally gets cloned, and a squad is out to kill him/his clone. It's a somewhat interesting concept, and it allows Arnold to play dual roles, sort…

The first 30-45 minutes of The 6th Day are pretty great; it’s goofy Schwarzenegger science fiction in the vein of Total Recall. It fails to live up to that film, one of Arnie’s career high marks, because of poor direction and diminishing returns on a premise promising at least double the normal allotment of Arnold Units (AU), the gold standard for the quantitative measurement of delirious action-movie madness. “Double,” because, you know, the cloning? Okay, you get it, sorry. So while Arnolds 1 and 2 have a few cute scenes, the potential for full-bore nuttiness is never fulfilled. The 6th Day needs more quick-zoom close-ups on Arnold(s)’s face(s), all screaming mouth(s) and bugged-out eyes(es). More screaming Arnolds in general.

The…

When I told you fuck yourself, I didn't mean for you to take it literally.

The 6th Day is a pretty good film and it's such an underrated one too. The movies got a somewhat nicely written story with some enjoyable characters, energetic performances, great expressions (Arnold pulls some hilariously great expressions throughout this one.), weak and strong dialogue, lots of quotable lines, great comedic timing, hilarious humour, weak and strong pacing towards certain events, weakly and strongly built up consequences, a few well fleshed out emotions, pretty good cinematography, decent editing, lot's of cheesy but over the top action scenes from start to finish, each one of those action scenes throughout this film are so entertaining to watch.

Overall,…

Arnold Schwarzenegger and Arnold Schwarzenegger in a cool thriller about corporate cloning

8.7/10

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The 6th Day takes its name from Genesis, and is about the potential for massive ethical abuse in human cloning. After a jet chopper pilot gets killed on a taxi job, his friend Arnold Schwarzenegger wakes up to find a duplicate of him his attending his birthday party and eating his cake. A chase ensues as four hitmen - Terry Crews, Michael Rooker, Rodney Rowland, and Sarah Wynter - hunt him down to eliminate the illegal duplicate.

What emerges is part way between a sci-fi thriller about trying not to get killed by clones, and a political thriller with…

Coming off one of the most ordinary Bond films in its franchise, Scott Spottiswoode’s The 6th Day is nothing short of a fun, campy Schwarzenegger action/sci-fi flick. The film isn't overlong, settling at an exciting pace to truly be a satisfying adventure even if the tone and story feel a little cliche. This movie isn't all that complicated to follow and given that this is my second watch of it, I enjoyed it much more this time. The first half hour perfectly and swiftly introduces the film's characters and establishes enough about Schwarzenegger's character in order for some later reveals to hit home for the audience. This half hour breezes past and I may go as far to say that…