Genre: Science Fiction, Action Thriller
Director: Jonathan Mostow
Starring: Bruce Willis, Radha Mitchell, Rosamund Pike, Ving Rhames, James Cromwell
Running Time: 89 minutes (plus trailers)
“Our world has become a safer place”
In the not too distant future, the way we live our lives has been changed forever due to the advent of “surrogates” – robotic versions of ourselves that we can control from the comfort of our own home, sending them out into the world without any fear of injury, disease or death. But when two users, one of them the son of the inventor of surrogacy, are killed via signals from their own surrogates, it appears as though the technology may not be as safe as it seemed. Enter FBI Agent Tom Greer (Bruce Willis), an experienced but disillusioned detective who has begun to despise the fakeness of the world around him. Despite an interesting premise, Surrogates is a film that takes the easiest and most obvious route every single time. With shades of Gataca, The Matrix, Minority Report and I, Robot, Surrogates is a thought provoking film that is trapped within the most standard of sci-fi/action movies, and its failure to explore the ideas it so tantalizingly put forward left me feeling unsatisfied, bored and a little insulted.
The movie could have been really good. There are individual moments that were so promising; the ideas of anonymity, of changing oneself, of this artificial perfection are all so relevant in this internet age, but the movie never really goes further than the initial “oh look, the hot female robot was actually being controlled by a big fat dude”. I really wanted to explore the universe the film set up; I wanted to know more about surrogates, about what you could and could not do. I wanted a District 9 style look into this world; instead, I got the bare minimum that was required to push along what was, quite frankly, a very predictable murder mystery. I had so many questions - the movie tells us that 99% of the world now uses surrogates – does this include the billions of starving people in Africa? Is famine a thing of the past? I guess we’ll never know.
I’d like to present just a few examples of the utter lack of creativity in this film. Most obvious is the completely unnecessary fact that Bruce Willis’s character had a son who died. And we know this, from the moment he enters a child’s room in his home that is perfectly made up, and stares wistfully at a carefully placed baseball glove. There’s absolutely no reason for this subplot, except to give Willis the chance to whisper gruffly “I lost a son too” when a murder victims father yells “how can you possibly understand?” Yeah, we’ve never seen that before. Or what about the clever introduction a third of the way into the movie of the over-weight tech guy who can take control of any surrogate in the city; I wonder if he’s going to re-appear? Even the little things were uninspired – some characters abuse electricity, an addiction they refer to as “jacking”. Jacking? Creative stuff, really. I'm not sure if this indicates the screenwriters are stupid, or if they just think the audience is. Probably both.
There is some good in the movie. The ending, although a) predictable and b) given away in the trailer, was still my favourite part of the entire film – it was the only time it seemed to be trying for something other than stock standard storytelling. I also thought that Bruce Willis did a good job of playing Bruce Willis, a role he seems to have perfected over the years. Finally, the relationship between Willis’s character and his surrogate obsessed wife was somewhat interesting, and her job as a futuristic beautician seemed appropriate. But even this story arc could have been handled so much better. And on the other side of the coin we have the character of The Prophet, one of the stupidest, poorly developed characters you will ever see – I felt embarrassed for Ving Rhames any time he was on screen.
Director Jonathan Mostow previously made Terminator 3, a much hated film that I will, to a certain extent, defend. It obviously not up there with the first two, but at least it had some good action, and a few moments where it seemed to be trying. Surrogates doesn’t even have this working for it – the action is bland (and every second of it was featured in the trailer), the score tells you exactly how to feel at every given moment, and the film-making is shot reverse shot the entire way through. Surrogates had the potential to be a good maybe great sci-fi film, but everyone involved seems motivated only by the paycheck. From the dead son to the casting of James Cromwell, there is not an original thought to be found in Surrogates past the initial concept. And this, more than anything, is the reason to skip it.
Surrogates is in cinemas now
LAMBScore:
Director: Jonathan Mostow
Starring: Bruce Willis, Radha Mitchell, Rosamund Pike, Ving Rhames, James Cromwell
Running Time: 89 minutes (plus trailers)
“Our world has become a safer place”
In the not too distant future, the way we live our lives has been changed forever due to the advent of “surrogates” – robotic versions of ourselves that we can control from the comfort of our own home, sending them out into the world without any fear of injury, disease or death. But when two users, one of them the son of the inventor of surrogacy, are killed via signals from their own surrogates, it appears as though the technology may not be as safe as it seemed. Enter FBI Agent Tom Greer (Bruce Willis), an experienced but disillusioned detective who has begun to despise the fakeness of the world around him. Despite an interesting premise, Surrogates is a film that takes the easiest and most obvious route every single time. With shades of Gataca, The Matrix, Minority Report and I, Robot, Surrogates is a thought provoking film that is trapped within the most standard of sci-fi/action movies, and its failure to explore the ideas it so tantalizingly put forward left me feeling unsatisfied, bored and a little insulted.The movie could have been really good. There are individual moments that were so promising; the ideas of anonymity, of changing oneself, of this artificial perfection are all so relevant in this internet age, but the movie never really goes further than the initial “oh look, the hot female robot was actually being controlled by a big fat dude”. I really wanted to explore the universe the film set up; I wanted to know more about surrogates, about what you could and could not do. I wanted a District 9 style look into this world; instead, I got the bare minimum that was required to push along what was, quite frankly, a very predictable murder mystery. I had so many questions - the movie tells us that 99% of the world now uses surrogates – does this include the billions of starving people in Africa? Is famine a thing of the past? I guess we’ll never know.
I’d like to present just a few examples of the utter lack of creativity in this film. Most obvious is the completely unnecessary fact that Bruce Willis’s character had a son who died. And we know this, from the moment he enters a child’s room in his home that is perfectly made up, and stares wistfully at a carefully placed baseball glove. There’s absolutely no reason for this subplot, except to give Willis the chance to whisper gruffly “I lost a son too” when a murder victims father yells “how can you possibly understand?” Yeah, we’ve never seen that before. Or what about the clever introduction a third of the way into the movie of the over-weight tech guy who can take control of any surrogate in the city; I wonder if he’s going to re-appear? Even the little things were uninspired – some characters abuse electricity, an addiction they refer to as “jacking”. Jacking? Creative stuff, really. I'm not sure if this indicates the screenwriters are stupid, or if they just think the audience is. Probably both.There is some good in the movie. The ending, although a) predictable and b) given away in the trailer, was still my favourite part of the entire film – it was the only time it seemed to be trying for something other than stock standard storytelling. I also thought that Bruce Willis did a good job of playing Bruce Willis, a role he seems to have perfected over the years. Finally, the relationship between Willis’s character and his surrogate obsessed wife was somewhat interesting, and her job as a futuristic beautician seemed appropriate. But even this story arc could have been handled so much better. And on the other side of the coin we have the character of The Prophet, one of the stupidest, poorly developed characters you will ever see – I felt embarrassed for Ving Rhames any time he was on screen.
Director Jonathan Mostow previously made Terminator 3, a much hated film that I will, to a certain extent, defend. It obviously not up there with the first two, but at least it had some good action, and a few moments where it seemed to be trying. Surrogates doesn’t even have this working for it – the action is bland (and every second of it was featured in the trailer), the score tells you exactly how to feel at every given moment, and the film-making is shot reverse shot the entire way through. Surrogates had the potential to be a good maybe great sci-fi film, but everyone involved seems motivated only by the paycheck. From the dead son to the casting of James Cromwell, there is not an original thought to be found in Surrogates past the initial concept. And this, more than anything, is the reason to skip it.
Surrogates is in cinemas now
LAMBScore:
