While swimming in box office limbo for the better part of six years, Arnold Schwarzenegger enlists his duplicate to help him regain his box office muscle in the new science fiction action film, "The Sixth Day". Will two Arnie's bring the action king back to the top of the heap? To put it blunt, the Sixth Day is a great start.

"The Sixth Day" transports us to 2020 where the science of cloning has been introduced to mainstream society. Just bring your dying pet to "Re-Pet" and have him cloned so that he can continue to live with you. This new society dictates that the cloning of humans is to complex and that it is illegal if tried.

You may be asking how does our muscle-laden Austrian fit into this society. Arnold's character runs a charter service that brings skiers atop the nearest mountain for extreme skiing. One of Arnie's clients is a multi-billionaire (Tony Goldwyn) who is trying to get the public to accept the cloning of organs and other human characteristics.

One day Arnie decides to skip out on a charter and celebrate his birthday with his family. As he gets to the door he is completely baffled when he hears the "Birthday Song" coming from his home. He stops and pears in the window and to his shock he sees himself already encompassed in the birthday festivities. How could this be since he is standing on the porch?

As he is about to burst in and tackle this imposter, two figures step out of the shadows. One of the figures is a lady and she says, "You must come with us. A "sixth day" violation has been committed. A human was cloned." Who are these people, what the hell happened to Arnie's life and how can there be two of him?

As I sat and watched the "Sixth Day" I was reminded of the action films that Arnold made in the late eighties and early nineties. Films like "Predator", "Total Recall", "Terminator 2" and "True Lies" were staples of his multi-billion dollar career. Action films that had edge and substance. Films that allowed the audience to relate to the central character who was always in a situation he couldn't control. These films were the staples in Arnie's career and they were the reason why we wanted to see him time and time again. Another common thread in Arnold's successful movies was his teaming with great action directors like James Cameron, Peter Verhoeven and John McTiernan. What is great about the "Sixth Day" is the fact that all these elements come into play. The Sixth Day is helmed by Tomorrow Never Dies' director Roger Spottiswoode who seems to get better with every action film he makes.

The adrenaline and intrigue that was an Arnie staple for so long seem to leave a lot of his films when he started making the comedy films. In the Sixth Day we have that along with the debate of cloning. As the story and mystery unfolds you do find yourself thinking a lot about the whole element of cloning. I liked the fact that a film like this could challenge the audience with that kind of dilemma. I also have to commend Arnold for going back to what he as always done best, the action film.

What I was happy to see about this action film was that there was no "Matrix" or "John Woo" element in the fight scenes. After "Charlie's Angels" and "Mission Impossible 2", I was getting a little tired of the slow-motion camera. It was just nice to see a fist actually connect and a gun actually blast.

The small problems I had with the "Sixth Day" laid mainly in the interrogation scenes where the music was trying to add tension but I just wished I had a mute button. Others flaws may include the weak characters played by Tony Goldwyn, Robert Duvall, and Michael Rapaport. I mean these poor actors seem to play the same roles every film. I liked how Duvall started his research because of his dying wife but why didn't they expand on it more. You also have Goldwyn who always seems to play an ego-maniac jerk (remember him is 1990's Ghost?). This poor actor is still living that down. Then you have Rapaport who seems to be condemned to play every actor's dim-witted side-kick. Just would have liked to have seen more.

In conclusion, I would have to say I enjoyed "The Sixth Day" as much or slightly more than Arnie's last good action movie "Eraser". Welcome back Arnie and keep those action films coming.

(4 of 5) So Says the Soothsayer.

In the near future cloning is steadily becoming commonplace. Pets, organisms, extinct species, and more are being cloned all the time with the one exception of humans. A law, the 6th day law, prohibits cloning of humans and if a human is cloned it must be destroyed. Adam Gibson is a helicopter pilot for double x charter with his partner Hank. The two men shuttle snow boarders and other extreme sport-goers to exotic locales. One day Adam comes home and finds another man in his home, himself. Now Gibson is on the run from a group of assassins trying to get rid of "the evidence" and he's trying to find out what happened.

Plot: The 6th day is eerily reminiscent of another Schwarzenegger sci-fi film Total Recall. That film also takes place in the near future, the main character (Douglas Quaid in Total Recall) is subjected to an experimental procedure, and in both films the main character's adventure starts in a cab that the character has no idea how he got into. Even the disturbingly unrealistic johnnycab robot is replicated in this film as the frighteningly unrealistic SimPal doll robot. This story reminded me a lot of the terrible Sandra Bullock film, The Net. Both movies had really interesting subject matter that could have made an excellent film. Of course The 6th day is significantly better than The Net it still misses its full potential. Still a nice action vehicle for the aging Schwarzenegger. **1/2(out of five)

Acting: Ever since Batman and Robin the expectation level for Arnold Schwarenegger has been lowered significantly. In The 6th Day Arnold is at his best since...Total Recall. The standout performance in this film comes from actor Tony Goldwyn who plays the main antagonist, Michael Drucker Billionaire and CEO of replacement technologies, the cloning corporation. His performance simply drips with evil, in one scene a clone of himself steals the clothes off of a still not dead Drucker who asks, "Aren't you even going to wait till I die." The character is even evil to himself. ***1/2(out of five)

Directing: Roger Spottiswoode is the same man who brought the world the critically acclaimed Tomorrow Never Dies so action is not new to this director. Although the film seems stylistically similar to director Paul Verhoeven's vision of the future Spottiswoode adds enough variety on the look so the audience doesn't even notice. At times the director's scene choreography is confusing and the action is at time hard to follow. A little more originality would have been nice, but overall a good effort. ***(out of five)

Music: Composer Trevor Rabin is also no stranger to the action genre. Having composed the score for Gone in Sixty Seconds, Armageddon, Con Air, Bad Boys, and Speed Rabin has plenty of ammo to make another uninspired action score. As expected, that's all he really does. Nothing too inspiring musically, the score doesn't invoke too much emotion, but allows the story to move forward (It needs all the help it can get). Needless to say, the whole production is a little aurally boring. **1/2(out of five)

Special Effects: This film accomplishes one effect really well that basically hasn't been done with such technical flair since The Empire Strikes Back. Special effects in broad daylight. Sometimes even over snow. The character Adam Gibson has a charter flying company which flies futuristic helicopters called whispercrafts. While in flight (even during takeoffs and landings) these whispercrafts are entirely CG creations whose realism holds up under the bright sunlight reflected from snow covered mountains. Simply stunning. The special effects team involved such veteran effects people as Amalgamated Dynamics (Designers of the actual Alien suit used in Aliens, Alien3, and Alien: Resurrection), Cinesite, and Rhythm & Hues. There are over 700 effects shots in this film and each one looks better than the last. ****(out of five)

Bottom Line: The 6th Day is a film full of stupid fun action, but lacks some key story elements to make it great. ***(out of five)