MOVIE REVIEW - SURROGATES

SURROGATES – REVIEW

8.5 out of 10

Surrogates is a good movie with a fantastic, thought provoking premise.  Set in a futuristic world where humans live in isolation and interact through surrogate robots, a cop (Bruce Willis) must leave his home for the first time in years to investigate the murders of other’s surrogates.  In today’s technology obsessed society, where everyone carries a cell phone so that they can text or update their Facebook status, the idea that in the future, human beings will engage each other only through the use of their robots seems all too plausible and therefore frightening to think about.

The film begins with a brief sequence that explains why and how surrogates were created and how they quickly became mainstream.  At the time the story takes place, over 98% of the population uses surrogates and crime and disease have all been wiped out because of it.  The world is a safe environment where you can experience anything in life from the comfort of your living room.  It doesn’t seem all that unrealistic, does it?  Who wouldn’t want to live out their life as a better, perfect version of themselves?  With a surrogate you can be as handsome or as beautiful as you want.  You can be young forever.  You can have the safest sex imaginable (no pregnancy scares or STD worries when you don’t use your body).  That’s just the tip of the iceberg.  Imagine going to work every day without actually going.  As a parent you would be able to keep your kids safe all the time while allowing them to experience life in its fullest.  Worried about your 16 year old son driving a car for the first time?  Nothing to fear when his surrogate is behind the wheel.  If they ever invent surrogates in real life, it is easy to see how they would transform the world.

There have been plenty of films over the years from Blade Runner to I, Robot to the Terminator series that have explored what would happen if robots began to feel emotions like humans.   Surrogates is the only film that posits the question about what happens when human beings become the robots.   It seems more of a likely scenario for our own future especially when you think about all the time that people spend in computer simulated worlds like the Sims or any other video game for that matter.  Right now you can get a workout playing video tennis on your Wii… how soon before you can experience everything and anything through your home gaming system?  10 years, 20 years.  I don’t know the answer, but it seems like it is right around the corner.  

The story unfolds with the murder of two surrogates.  Normally this would be fine, if your surrogate gets injured, you don’t feel a thing, but not this time.  The real people behind the robots are each found dead, their brains liquefying from whatever weapon destroyed their surrogates.  While investigating this anomaly, Willis finds himself in the center of a huge conspiracy that can be perpetrated by many different people or groups.  Is it the government/military behind the murders?  It could be (James Cromwell), the inventor of surrogates who was unceremoniously dumped by VCI, the company that he helped build.  Is it VCI itself behind the conspiracy or is the work of a fringe group of people known as dreaders?   Led by an enigmatic preacher, the dreaders are a group of people who protest the use of surrogates and believe that life should be lived and experienced as god intended.  Director Jonathon Mostow does a terrific job at keeping us guessing who the real villains are.  The action sequences are all good, although they don’t break any new ground.  The effects are all done very well and the acting is solid across the board.  The real pleasure of Surrogates, again, comes from the thought provoking nature of the future depicted here.

Bruce Willis is as always in fine form as the beleaguered detective trying to get a grasp on this modern world.  Willis is perhaps the most underrated actor around.  How that’s even possible after his deft performances in films such as Die Hard, Pulp Fiction and The Sixth Sense (to name but a few), I don’t know.  All I know is that whether it’s a good movie or a terrible one, Willis always delivers.

To sum it up, Surrogates is a solid action, thriller with a fantastic premise, ably directed by Jonathon Mostow and anchored by yet another solid performance from Bruce Willis.