Plot summary: A company that offers 'emergency spare parts' for the rich and famous has a dirty secret: the clones they grow for these parts are sentient adults, despite a corporate claim to the contrary. When the clones win tickets to what they think is a paradise 'island', they are actually being sent for slaughter. But as the clones develop they become smart enough to work out their fate, and to fight it.
Science review: For those who are frightened or confused: when people talk about 'cloning' in order to help save lives and cure disease, they are NOT talking about making a living, breathing, grown-up twin of the patient. Therapeutic cloning involves making the tiny beginnings of an embryo that is genetically matched to a patient, and extracting stem cells from it (see 'Stem cells in focus'). Some therapeutic-cloning researchers have fought to have their work referred to as 'somatic cell nuclear transfer', in part to help clear up this misconception, but it hasn't really stuck - at least not in the press. There are of course still ethical issues, but not the same ones as in this film.
As for whether or not it's even possible to clone a person, researchers have cloned a sheep, a cat and a dog, to name a few, and, possibly, human embryos. This latter feat, claims for which have been made by only a handful of scientists, has so far proven very hard to do, and even harder to confirm.
Award: Scariest representation of cloning.
Image: © 2005 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. |
