Surrogates Review

Posted by Joseph Lee on 09.28.2009

This is what happens when you allow the Internet to evolve.




Starring:

*Bruce Willis as Agent Tom Greer
*Radha Mitchell as Agent Peters
*Rosamund Pike as Maggie Greer
*Ving Rhames as The Prophet
*Boris Kodjoe as Andrew Stone
*Jack Noseworthy as Miles Strickland
*James Cromwell as Dr. Lionel Canter

Story: Set in a futuristic world where humans live in isolation and interact through surrogate robots, a cop is forced to leave his home for the first time in years in order to investigate the murders of others’ surrogates.

Trivia: Actress Elizabeth Banks is one of the executive producers on this film.

We've all heard stories about people meeting others in chat rooms who don't appear as they really are. Some big fat guy posing as a young girl or someone much older acting as if they are younger. What if you could live day-to-day like that? What if you had the ability to go out into the world as not who you are, but who you want to be? This is the clever scenario used in the comic book The Surrogates, which has now been adapted into a film starring Bruce Willis and directed by Jonathan Mostow (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines).

The premise itself asks a lot of questions about the way people are. If we had this ability, would crime really go down? Or would the anonymity of having a machine represent us make us more likely to commit crime? You could conceivably murder someone and leave no DNA evidence. Would anyone turn down this new lifestyle or would everyone embrace it? What of the lower class citizens? Surely they wouldn't be able to afford new robots. It's not a bad thing for a movie to raise questions, I'm just pointing out how an intelligent premise like this could make for an epic sci-fi thriller.

The story begins with a murder. The surrogate robot is killed in such a way that it kills the person as well. Sort of like in the Nightmare series when Freddy kills someone in their dreams. The only problem is, you're not supposed to be affected when your surrogate is disabled. So this is a powerful weapon being used and Agent Tom Greer (Willis) is on the case. Unfortunately, he has to leave his surrogate behind when it's damaged and he can't get a new one. Soon he finds himself one of the only real people left trying to solve a murder.

I mentioned the fact this movie's premise brings up questions. The movie itself brings up even more questions, which is a failing of it's script more than it's intriguing ideas. We never really get an explanation as to why several people are against the use of these robots, for example. Outside of a vague cries of "abomination", their motives aren't too clear. In the comic series, the motives are clear...but then again, this takes a lot of twists and turns that are unlike that on which it is based. The result is a weak script that wastes it's potential to make a generic sci-fi action movie. It throws in plot twists and an ending seems way too clean for my tastes. That's all I can really say without giving it away.

I did enjoy a few of the elements however. Bruce Willis can act in his sleep these days, but he provides a credible performance as a man who is growing increasingly dissatisfied with the use of artificial life in exchange for a real one. I sympathized with him here, as you could tell who was phony by the way their surrogate looked (for example, a nerdy pale white guy's surrogate is a giant black man). Willis was a fine choice to lead this film, as he manages to carry most of it on his back. We also have a fairly strong supporting cast which includes James Cromwell, Radha Mitchell and Ving Rhames. Although I thought the way Rhames looked was a little too goofy to be taken seriously.

The action sequences, for what they are, aren't too bad. Towards the middle of the film there is a chase scene that involves a helicopter crash that I really enjoyed. I would say however, this is another opportunity of wasted potential. These people are using robots. You could have inflicted a lot of damage to them and even break more physics laws than you did without getting an R-rating. I'd hate to praise anything about Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, but at least Michael Bay had no problem ripping robots to shreds. However, massive robot damage doesn't really occur here, as we get standard action scenes. Not bad, but they could have been a lot better.

I liked Surrogates. It takes advantage of having Bruce Willis as it's star, even if it doesn't always deliver in it's action sequences and felt weak. The problem with this film is that it choose to toe the line. It's not intelligent enough to be a thinking man's sci-fi film and it's not dumb enough to be an enjoyable "turn your brain off" actioner. Instead it's just average. Not good, not bad, just average.

The 411: Surrogates feels like wasted potential. Jonathan Mostow had the chance to make an excellent sci-fi film using his cast, premise and the source material. But with a weak script and generic and disappointing action scenes, it doesn't live up to my expectations. It's not a bad film and I did enjoy it. My problem was that it wasn't as good as it could and should have been.

Final Score:  6.0   [ Average ]