MICHAEL Bay is a master of wringing dumb, noisy movies out of intriguing premises.

Whether it's an epic recreation of the conflict between America and Japan in December 1941 (Pearl Harbor), a doomsday scenario involving a giant asteroid hurtling towards Earth (Armageddon), or the threat posed by terrorists armed with chemical weapons (The Rock), no one has appealed to the multiplex masses quite so blatantly and successfully as Bay.

However, audiences are a fickle bunch: give them what they want for long enough, and they'll end up hungering for something else entirely.

And so it seems with The Island, which uses timely concerns about genetic cloning as a catalyst for Bay's trademark brand of carnage and outrageous pyrotechnics.

With a reported budget in excess of $120 million, The Island has taken barely a quarter of that amount in its first three weeks (the gratuitous product placement should help bridge some of the shortfall.).

Someone has lost his Midas touch. Or perhaps audiences have finally stopped checking their brains in at the door.

Lincoln Six-Echo (Ewan McGregor) is one of hundreds of residents of a 21st century, utopian facility, in which every facet of the environment is carefully monitored and controlled by institute head Merrick (Sean Bean) and his team.

The abiding hope of every resident is to be chosen to visit to The Island, the fabled last uncontaminated spot on the planet.

By chance, Lincoln makes a shocking discovery that casts a shadow over his existence and reveals that he is worth far more dead than alive.

Launching a desperate rescue bid in tandem with beautiful fellow resident Jordan Two-Delta (Scarlett Johansson), Lincoln heads into the alien and unforgiving outside world, with bounty hunter Albert Laurent (Djimon Hounsou) and his henchmen in hot pursuit.

The Island looks incredible and Bay orchestrates lots of bang for your buck, including a jaw-dropping highway chase, including speeder bike craft which seem to have been hired (even down to the sound effects) from a certain George Lucas epic.

While the film certainly puts the pedal to the metal, there's not a great deal of intelligence underpinning the spectacle.

Lincoln and Jordan are surprisingly bullet proof and learn to cope with alien concepts remarkably quickly, despite their closeted upbringing.

McGregor and Johansson look appealing in their tight-fitting tracksuits but have no need to flex their acting muscles.

Both roles are largely physical rather than emotional, running from one deafening set piece to the next.

A couple of neat visual gags (Jordan staring dumb-founded at Johansson's real life adverts for a well-known perfume; Lincoln coming face-to-face with his slimy Scottish doppelganger) are a fleeting distraction.

See it at UCI, Odeon

www.theisland-themovie.com