''The 6th Day'' is a 2000 American

science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...

action film The action film is a film genre that predominantly features chase sequences, fights, shootouts, explosions, and stunt work. The specifics of what constitutes an action film has been in scholarly debate since the 1980s. While some scholars such as D ...

directed by

Roger Spottiswoode John Roger Spottiswoode (born 5 January 1945) is a Canadian-British director, editor and writer of film and Television program, television. Early life He was born in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and was raised in Britain. His father Raymond Spotti ...

and starring

Arnold Schwarzenegger Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger (born July30, 1947) is an Austrian and American actor, businessman, former politician, and former professional bodybuilder, known for his roles in high-profile action films. Governorship of Arnold Schwarzenegger, ...

, Tony Goldwyn, Michael Rapaport, Michael Rooker, Sarah Wynter, and

Robert Duvall Robert Selden Duvall (; born January 5, 1931) is an American actor. With a career spanning seven decades, he is regarded as one of the greatest actors of all time. He has received an Academy Awards, Academy Award, a British Academy Film Awards ...

. 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

Genesis creation narrative The Genesis creation narrative is the creation myth of both Judaism and Christianity, told in the book of Genesis chapters 1 and 2. While the Jewish and Christian tradition is that the account is one comprehensive story, modern scholars of ...

shared among the

Abrahamic religions The term Abrahamic religions is used to group together monotheistic religions revering the Biblical figure Abraham, namely Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The religions share doctrinal, historical, and geographic overlap that contrasts them wit ...

, where God created humanity on the sixth day of the universe's existence. The film was

Terry Crews Terry Alan Crews (born July 30, 1968) is an American actor, television host, and former professional American football, football player. He played Julius Rock in the UPN/The CW Television Network, CW sitcom ''Everybody Hates Chris'', which air ...

' first acting appearance. Schwarzenegger received a salary of $25 million for his role in the film. The film received mixed reviews and was a box office failure, earning $96 million worldwide on a budget of $82 million.

Plot

Following the successful

cloning Cloning is the process of producing individual organisms with identical genomes, either by natural or artificial means. In nature, some organisms produce clones through asexual reproduction; this reproduction of an organism by itself without ...

of Dolly the sheep in the 1990s, artificial cloning of animals has become commonplace by 2015.

Human cloning Human cloning is the creation of a genetically Cloning, identical copy of a human. The term is generally used to refer to artificial human cloning, which is the reproduction of human Cell (biology), cells and Tissue (biology), tissue. It does ...

is prohibited by " Sixth Day" laws, following a botched attempt. Charter pilot Adam Gibson is hired for a

snowboarding Snowboarding is a recreational and competitive activity that involves descending a snow-covered surface while standing on a snowboard that is almost always attached to a rider's feet. It features in the Winter Olympic Games and Winter Paralym ...

excursion by Michael Drucker, billionaire owner of cloning corporation Replacement Technologies, who requires him to undergo a seemingly routine drug test. When Adam’s wife informs him that their daughter’s dog has died, he reluctantly visits one of Drucker’s “RePet” cloning stores, while his partner Hank poses as Adam and flies Drucker to the mountains, where they are killed by an assassin, Tripp. Buying a life-size

animatronic An animatronic is a puppet controlled electronically to move in a fluent way. Animatronics are the modern adaptation of the automaton and are often used for the portrayal of characters in films, video games and in theme park attractions. Anim ...

“SimPal” doll for his daughter instead, Adam returns home to discover a clone of himself with his family. Before he can intervene, Adam is abducted by Marshall, Drucker’s head of security, and his agents Talia, Vincent, and Wiley. Adam escapes, killing Talia and Wiley, and goes to the police but is believed to be an escaped mental patient. Drucker, somehow alive, assures reporters that he does not intend to have the Sixth Day laws repealed. However, he and his chief scientist, Dr. Griffin Weir, have secretly already perfected illegal human cloning and revive clones of Talia and Wiley. Adam breaks out of the police station and is forced to kill Wiley again, before finding Hank at his apartment, still alive. He brings Hank to his house and contemplates killing his clone but has second thoughts and reconsiders. Marshall and Talia arrive, forcing Adam to pose as his clone to send them away. Returning to his apartment, Hank is again killed by Tripp, who is shot by Adam. A dying Tripp reveals he is an anti-cloning extremist who assassinated Drucker, the latter being subsequently cloned along with Hank. Marshall and Talia arrive, but Adam escapes in their vehicle after shooting off Talia’s fingers, taking her thumb to bypass the car’s biometric lock. Adam uses the thumb to sneak into Replacement Technologies and confronts Dr. Weir, whose pursuit of cloning is driven by his wife Katherine’s cystic fibrosis. She reveals to her husband that she knows she is the latest in a series of clones he has made in an attempt to cure her. Weir explains that the blood and vision tests Adam underwent scanned his DNA and memories — captured as a “syncording” — in the event he needed to be cloned. He reveals Drucker was secretly cloned after dying years earlier to maintain control of his fortune, as clones have no legal rights. Believing both Adam and Hank were killed alongside Drucker, Weir cloned them to return to their lives and cover up Drucker’s murder and second cloning. Weir gives Adam the syncording proving Drucker has been cloned, warning that he may go after Adam’s clone and family. Adam races to Clara’s school recital, where Talia and Vincent have already abducted his wife and daughter. Coming face-to-face with his own clone, Adam reveals their situation and agrees to deliver the incriminating syncording to Drucker in exchange for his family. Weir confronts Drucker, who engineered the clones, including Katherine, with shortened lifespans as an insurance policy against betrayal. Drucker kills Weir, promising to resurrect him and Katherine as clones. Sending a decoy helicopter to be destroyed, Adam lands on Drucker’s

helipad A helipad is the landing area of a heliport, in use by helicopters, powered lift, and vertical lift aircraft to land on surface. While helicopters and powered lift aircraft are able to operate on a variety of relatively flat surfaces, a fa ...

and wreaks havoc until he is captured. Drucker reveals that Adam is actually the clone, proven by a marking inside his eyelid, but realizes the real Adam has also infiltrated the building. While the original Adam rescues his family, his clone fights off Drucker’s agents, hanging Talia and drowning Marshall while Drucker himself kills Wiley for accidentally shooting him. They are finally killed, and a mortally wounded Drucker clones himself again, but the malfunctioning equipment creates a deformed, incomplete body. Adam and his clone escape in the helicopter with his family, destroying the facility and all its syncordings as Drucker's newest clone falls to his death. The real Adam arranges for his clone, who is discovered to not have a shortened lifespan like the other clones, to start a new life in

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

, running a satellite office of their charter business. As a parting gift, the clone gives the family Hank's RePet cat, and the real Adam gives his clone a flying send-off.

Cast

as Adam Gibson / Adam Gibson Clone * Tony Goldwyn as Michael Drucker, the CEO of Replacement Technologies * Michael Rapaport as Hank Morgan, Adam's best friend * Michael Rooker as Robert Marshall, a Millennium security agent and Drucker's right-hand man * Sarah Wynter as Talia Elsworth, an assassin working for Drucker * Wendy Crewson as Natalie Gibson, Adam's wife * Rodney Rowland as P. Wiley, an assassin working for Drucker *

as Vincent Bansworth, an assassin working for Drucker * Ken Pogue as Speaker Day *

Colin Cunningham Colin Alexander Cunningham (born 1966) is an American television and film actor. Cunningham is best known for his roles as John Pope in the TNT science fiction series '' Falling Skies'' and as Major/Lt.Col Paul Davis on ''Stargate SG-1'' and ...

as Tripp, a religious fundamentalist strongly against cloning *

as Dr. Griffin Weir, Drucker's scientist in charge of the cloning * Wanda Cannon as Katherine Weir, Griffin's wife * Taylor Anne Reid as Clara Gibson, Adam's daughter * Jennifer Gareis as Virtual Girlfriend * Andrea Libman as The voice of SimPal Cindy *

Steve Bacic Steve Bacic ( ;"Waiting for lift-off; U of W alumnus Steve Bacic hopes to revise role on Andromeda" by Ted Shaw, ''Windsor Star, The Windsor Star'' (17 Jan, 2004) inal EditionRetrieved from ) is a Canadians, Canadian actor. He is known for ...

as Johnny Phoenix, a football player who is cloned after dying in game

Production

Joe Dante Joseph James Dante Jr. (; born November 28, 1946) is an American film director. His films—notably ''Gremlins'' (1984) alongside its sequel, ''Gremlins 2: The New Batch'' (1990)—often mix the 1950s-style B movie genre with Counterculture of th ...

was initially attached to direct the film, before Arnold Schwarzenegger signed on to star. ''The 6th Day'' was filmed in

Vancouver Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

and

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

, Canada.

Release

Theatrical

''The 6th Day'' premiered at the

Tokyo International Film Festival The is a film festival established in 1985. The event was held biennially from 1985 to 1991 and annually thereafter. According to the FIAPF, it is one of Asia's competitive film festivals and the second largest film festival in Asia behind the ...

. It was released theatrically on November 17, 2000.

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: A

Blu-ray Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of high-defin ...

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.

Reception

Box office

The film opened at #4 behind '' How the Grinch Stole Christmas'',''

Charlie's Angels ''Charlie's Angels'' is an American crime drama television series created by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts for ABC. It originally aired from September 22, 1976, to June 24, 1981, airing for five seasons consisting of 115 episodes. It was produ ...

'' and '' Rugrats in Paris: The Movie'', grossing $13 million in its opening weekend. It eventually grossed $34 million in North America and $96 million worldwide, while '' Variety'' reports $116 million.

Critical response

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

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." On

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

the film has a score of 49 out of 100 based on reviews from 30 critics. Audiences polled by

CinemaScore CinemaScore is an American market research firm based in Las Vegas. It surveys film audiences to rate their viewing experiences with letter grades, reports the results, and forecasts box office receipts from the data. Background Ed Mintz, who ...

gave the film an average grade of "C" on an A+ to F scale.

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert ( ; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American Film criticism, film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter and author. He wrote for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. Eber ...

of the ''

Chicago Sun-Times The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily nonprofit newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has long held the second largest circulation among Chicago newspaper ...

'' 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 " isproblem 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."

Kenneth Turan Kenneth Turan (; born October 27, 1946) is an American retired film critic, author, and lecturer in the Master of Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California. He was a film critic for the ''Los Angeles Times'' from 1991 ...

of the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

'' disliked the generic appearance of the film and Schwarzenegger's

typecasting In film, television, and theatre, typecasting is the process by which a particular actor becomes strongly identified with a specific character, one or more particular roles, or characters having the same traits or coming from the same social or ...

as an action hero. He gave the film two out of five stars. Todd McCarthy of Variety called it: "A mostly standard-issue latter-day Arnold Schwarzenegger actioner spiked with a creepily plausible cloning angle."

Accolades

''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''. The film was also nominated four times at the 27th Saturn Awards, but lost to ''

X-Men The X-Men are a superhero team in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer/editor Stan Lee and artist/co-plotter Jack Kirby, the team first appeared in Uncanny X-Men, ''The X-Men'' #1 (September 1963). Although initial ...

'' for Best Actor and Best Science Fiction Film, '' Hollow Man'' for Best Special Effects and '' How the Grinch Stole Christmas'' for Best Make-Up.

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:6th Day, The 2000 films 2000 science fiction action films 2000 action thriller films American action thriller films American science fiction action films American science fiction thriller films 2000s English-language films Films about cats Films about cloning Films about consciousness transfer Films set in the future Films shot in Vancouver Films shot in Toronto Columbia Pictures films Phoenix Pictures films Films directed by Roger Spottiswoode Films scored by Trevor Rabin 2000s American films Films with screenplays by Cormac and Marianne Wibberley Films produced by Jon Davison (film producer) Films produced by Mike Medavoy Films produced by Arnold Schwarzenegger English-language science fiction action films English-language action thriller films