Welcome to the near future where technology reigns supreme with computer driven cars, human looking robot dolls, virtual girlfriends, genetically engineered food, and cloned pets. Adam Gibson (Arnold Schwarzenegger) runs a helicopter charter service with his buddy Hank (Michael Rapaport). These high-tech vehicles are capable of turning into jet aircraft and can be operated by remote control. When Adam is hired by Michael Drucker (Tony Goldwyn), the multibillionaire head of Replacement Technologies, a firm overseeing the replenishing of the world's food supply through cloning and genetic engineering, he is required to first take a special fingerprinting and eyesight-testing procedure. Arriving home later that day to celebrate his birthday, Adam finds another man who looks exactly like him in the midst of festivities with his family and friends.
The mystery as to why he has been illegally cloned lies behind the walls of Drucker's biotech corporation where advanced experiments in DNA infusion are secretly taking place under the supervision of Dr. Griffin Weir (Robert Duvall). Adam soon finds himself being hunted down by Marshall (Michael Rooker), Drucker's right hand man, along with two nasty assassins, Wiley (Rod Rowland) and Talia (Sarah Wynter). Imagine our hero's dismay when these two spring back into action several days after he has killed them. "In my day," he says, "people who were dead stayed dead."
Roger Spottiswoode (Under Fire) directs this thriller that contains the requisite number of car chases, explosions, and special effects sequences. The witty screenplay by Cormac and Marianne Wibberley offers a savage critique of a corporation that sets out to market "the business of life." The drama comes down squarely on the side of Adam who cherishes the imperfections of his body, his one and onlyness, and the natural process of life and death. The arrogance of Drucker, a megalomaniac with delusions of grandeur, is staggering. At one point, he justifies his "immortality project" with the statement "I'm just taking over where God left off." The Christian fundamentalists demonstrating against cloning are presented as zealots willing to use murder in support of their cause.