During much of the 1980s, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone duked it out as the two premiere bodybuilders when it came to box office returns. However, when the decade changed, Sly’s career took a nosedive, as without the decent success of 1993’s Cliffhanger, he would have gone all of the 1990s without a single hit.

Although he spent the first half of the decade at the top of the charts with hits like Terminator 2 and True Lies, Schwarzenegger declined during the second half of the 1990s. While he neatly rebounded from the failure of 1993’s Last Action Hero with 1994’s True Lies, his next effort - 1996’s Eraser - failed to find the expected audience.

No, Eraser didn’t tank, but it also didn’t pull in the anticipated business. 1997’s Batman and Robin - in which Schwarzenegger played Mr. Freeze - almost killed the franchise.

However, the problems with the latter weren’t Schwarzenegger’s fault, really, as the blame primarily resided with director Joel Schumacher and a miscast George Clooney as Batman. Nonetheless, the descent had really begun, and it didn’t help that health concerns kept Schwarzenegger off the screen for more than two years.

When he returned, the results were less than spectacular. Late 1999’s End Of Days proved to be another financial disappointment as it collapsed among the ruins of other apocalyptic fantasies found in the pre-millennial fervor.

Apparently eager to revisit the salad days of a decade earlier, the next Schwarzenegger piece returned to familiar territory: the future. 2000’s The 6th Day cast Schwarzenegger as a man who runs into problems when he’s cloned.

Unfortunately, human cloning is illegal in the “very near future” - when the movie takes place - so the evil corporation behind the activity wants to ice him to hide the evidence.

Never mind that boohoogles of other clones walk the Earth, and they each have easily identifiable marks that brand them as copies. You don’t watch a movie like The 6th Day for flawless logic - you check it out to get revved up by the action.

With director Roger Spottiswoode behind the camera - the man who helmed 1997’s moderately successful Bond flick Tomorrow Never Dies - 6th Day looked like it might have had some potential.

Or maybe not. A glance at Spottiswoode’s résumé shows that in addition to the Bond flick, he also led such classics as 1989’s Tom Hanks embarrassment Turner and Hooch and Stallone’s most infamous work, 1992’s Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot.

While The 6th Day isn’t a bad movie, it certainly lacks any spark or true excitement. At best, Spottiswoode is a competent director of action flicks.

At this point, the Bond franchise is such a well-oiled machine that directors become almost irrelevant. While a good captain might bring out greater thrills in the series, a mediocre one is unlikely to really harm it.

Spottiswoode showed no great talent in Tomorrow Never Dies, but he also knew when to get out of the way and let the usual pyrotechnics and danger run their course.

In 6th Day, Spottiswoode seems to take a similar approach, but without the solid and established crew behind him, the project founders. This seems like a very generic futuristic action film and absolutely no parts of it do anything to distinguish themselves.

Actually, that’s not totally true, as early on, we see a football game played as part of a very successful league. Unfortunately, the filmmakers put their money on the XFL, an organization that flopped.

It’s not good when your movie starts with an unintended laugh such as this, and The 6th Day does little to go above that mistaken bet. I like Schwarzenegger as an action hero, but when it comes to playing regular folks, he’s a dismal failure.

During much of the film, he has to interact with his wife, his daughter, and his friends, and Schwarzenegger simply can’t pull off the natural, warm style required. He seems absurdly - and painfully - phony in those scenes, and you just pray for an explosion to get us past his excessive emoting.

It also doesn’t help that 6th Day seems to be at least a half an hour too long. When I find myself checking out the time display on my player and thinking “I’ve only watched 40 minutes??!!” I know something’s wrong.

I could not resist my urges to inspect the passing minutes, and I constantly could not believe what I saw. When the movie hit the one-hour mark, it seemed impossible that another 64 minutes of story remained. There appeared to be so little left to do that I thought the 124 minute running time listed on the disc’s case was a mistake.

However, it most definitely was correct, and The 6th Day simply plodded along to its conclusion. At least this wasn’t an inevitable conclusion. Though many of the plot’s twists appeared predictable, it threw in a couple of surprises that made the movie a little more interesting.

But not much, unfortunately, as The 6th Day simply is too slow moving and uninventive to offer a very entertaining experience. On one hand, I’ve definitely seen worse.

Despite its lack of spark, at least the movie seemed competently made, and it boasted a fairly good supporting cast including Robert Duvall, Tony Goldwyn and Michael Rapaport. Only the former made any substantial impact, however, as the other two sleepwalked through their generic roles.

In any case, The 6th Day is not a terrible movie. However, it is a bland one, and a dull action flick is not a good thing. Honestly, it felt like little more than a mild variation of Schwarzenegger’s 1990 hit Total Recall, as the themes and styles were similar in many ways.

However, the latter featured a strong director in Paul Verhoeven - the man makes many missteps, but at least he remains distinctive.

The same cannot be said for the very ordinary Roger Spottiswoode. This leaves 6th Day as a mediocre sci-fi thriller.

The 6th Day appears in an aspect ratio of 2.40:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. While not bad, the transfer lacked much to make it special.

For the most part, sharpness seemed fine. Some softness impacted interiors and wide shots, but most of the film showed good accuracy.

No issues with jagged edges or moiré effects occurred, but mild edge haloes cropped up through the movie. Print flaws remained minor, as I saw nothing more than a couple of small specks.

In terms of colors, Day opted for a fairly blue overtone. Within palette choices, the tones seemed generally positive, though they never came across as especially impressive.

Blacks became reasonably dark and dense, while shadows displayed acceptable clarity. A mix of good and mediocre, this became a “B-“ presentation.

I found a more positive experience from the film’s Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mix, as it seemed active and involving. All five channels provided a strong amount of information.

The forward speakers dominated but the rears gave them a run for their money. The surrounds kicked in with strong reinforcement throughout the movie and provided unique audio much of the time.

Easily the best segments were those that involved the helicopters, and especially notable was the first time we saw them fly, as this sequence showed off excellent dimensional audio and active split-surround usage. The track offered a wonderfully engaging experience throughout the film.

Audio quality also seemed excellent. Dialogue appeared crisp and natural with no signs of edginess or problems related to intelligibility. Speech was always distinct and looped lines blended well with the rest of the track.

Music seemed bright and rich and provided positive bass, as did the effects. In this kind of film, effects are especially important, and the sound didn’t disappoint.

The effects blasted realistically and cleanly from all the speakers and provided a dynamic punch. Ultimately, I thought the movie featured a strong soundtrack that helped make the story a bit more involving.

How did the Blu-ray compare to the prior DVD? Audio showed more life and range, while visuals became tighter and more distinctive. Though the transfer didn’t excel, it improved upon the DVD.

Some of the DVD extras repeat here, and we find a Showtime featurette called The Future Is Coming. This 15-minute, 33-second program brings comments from actors Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tony Goldwyn, Wendy Crewson, Robert Duvall, Michael Rapaport, Sarah Wynter, Terry Crews, and Rod Rowland as well as director Roger Spottiswoode, producers Mike Medavoy and Jon Davison, executive producer Daniel Petrie, visual effects supervisor Peter Kuran, special effects animator Kurt Wiley, production designers Jim Bissell and John Willett, special effects supervisor Michael Lantieri, and Mark Westhusin of the “Missyplicity Project”, an attempt to clone a pet.

Despite the length of that roster, “Future” offers little depth. While it seems to be a watchable program, it always remains true to its promotional origins, so don’t expect anything particularly involving or compelling.

Instead, we learn a little superficial material about the movie along with some occasionally interesting behind the scenes footage. Frankly, I would have enjoyed more information about real-life cloning, but since “Future” exists to promote the film, I guess I should be happy with what I got.

Next we find a collection of nine featurettes in an area titled On the Sixth Day. All told, these add up to 48 minutes, 23 seconds of material.

This department starts with Another Way to Fly. The four-minute, 42-second piece focuses on the effects behind the film’s Whisper-Crafts.

For “Fly”, we hear from Bissell, Lantieri, visual effects producer Karen Murphy, and computer artist Rpin Suwannath. The program offers some moderately interesting information about this side of the film, but overall it seems a little flat and generic.

More interesting is the next featurette, the seven-minute, 48-second Finding Sim Pal Cindy. It examines the creation of that “living doll” and we get remarks from hairstylist Melina Calogiros as well as Tom Woodruff Jr., Alec Gillis, Dave Penikas and Mark Hull of Amalgamated Dynamics, the crew that invented the animatronic. Overall, this is a fun little piece that gives us a fairly solid examination of this part of the process.

Another decent but unspectacular program appears next with the six-minute, three-second The Art of the Chase. It gives us notes from second unit director Jim Arnett and Lantieri as it relates the details of a car chase.

I liked Arnett’s discussion of the second unit’s responsibilities, but otherwise the piece lacked much depth. Some of the behind the scenes shots were reasonably good, however.

In Over the Cliff, we discover a three-minute, 29-second look at a stunt car jump. It includes comments from production manager Brent O’Connor and Spottiswoode.

This one seemed a little stronger than some of the others as it discussed the logistics involved. I especially liked the emphasis on the environmental regulations that required them to change the car.

For Virtual Girlfriend, we find a four-minute, 30-second program about the effects that allowed Hank to interact with his literal fantasy girl. It includes statements from Murphy and Wiley as we get a fairly detailed look at the work that went into those scenes. It’s one of the more compelling featurettes.

In the Tank gives us six minutes, 36 seconds of material about the film’s big set and its water tank. We hear from Willett, Schwarzenegger, and dive supervisor Jeff Bough. Another somewhat mediocre piece, this one offers some decent shots from the set but seems a little dull as a whole.

Next we get Free Falling, a three-minute, 19-second examination of a stuntman’s rapid descent. It includes remarks from Arnett and effects rigging coordinator Corbin H. Fox. This is another solid segment as it details the preparations and work that must go into ensuring safety during this sort of stunt.

Given its title, one might expect Detonation to cover explosives, and that’s exactly what the three-minute, 44-second program does. It gives us notes from Gene Warren Jr. of Fantasy Film Effects and Joe Viskocil of Viskocil Effects as they offer a reasonably solid look at various pyrotechnics.

Finally, Enhancing the Look offers a more general eight-minute, nine-second examination of various visual improvements made to the movie. It includes remarks from Murphy, visual effects supervisors David Drzwiecki and Tom Smith, and Spottiswoode.

The program’s main emphasis is on the double-Arnie shots, and it nicely covers how those were created as well as some minor touch-ups. “Enhancing” ends the featurettes on a positive note, but overall, they seem generally interesting but nothing terribly special.

During “Another Way to Fly” we saw some examples of animatics, and a separate area on the disc offers lengthier versions of those snippets. We get clips for two scenes: “Snowy Mountain” and “Rooftop”.

The former consists virtually entirely of crude computer animation and runs two minutes, 43 seconds, while the latter more liberally mixes CGI with storyboards and lasts three minutes, 30 seconds. Both are interesting diversions but nothing spectacular.

Additional planning materials appear in the Storyboard Comparisons domain. We get art and film for three scenes: “Car Chase” (4:10), “Whisper-Craft” (1:22) and ”Cloning Tanks” (2:21).

These present the boards in the top half of the screen and the movie runs in the bottom. They should be interesting for those who like that sort of thing, but I’m not a big fan of boards, so they did little for me.

In the “fun” category are the two RePet ads we discover on the disc. One of these is the “infomercial” seen briefly at the RePet store, while the other shows the TV ad we see.

Both offered in their uncut glory, the former runs two minutes, 36 seconds, while the latter clocks in at 45 seconds. It was great to get to watch them uninterrupted.

The disc opens with ads for Damages and Rescue Me. No trailer for Day appears here.

As a whole, The 6th Day offers a watchable but overly long and bland action film. It never becomes a bad flick, but it fails to engage or excite much. The Blu-ray brings decent visuals along with excellent audio and a decent mix of bonus materials. Day gets some points for prescience but it doesn’t turn into a memorable experience.

To rate this film, visit the DVD review of THE 6TH DAY