'Surrogates' Movie Review

Surrogates is based on the graphic novel by Robert Venditti and Brett Weldele, a graphic novel I didn't read and wasn't aware of until seeing Surrogates the movie. And after seeing the film adaptation, I have no desire to check out the source material though I'm willing to bet it's a whole lot more entertaining than the movie it inspired. Surrogates wants us to disconnect from technology and reconnect with our humanity, but the film doesn't connect with its audience enough to deliver the message effectively. It's cold, lifeless, and silly, and it takes itself far, far too seriously.

The Story

In the near future, robots will do everything for us - and I mean everything. They'll walk our dogs, go to work, go shopping, go out on dates, hang out in night clubs... Whatever it is we do during our normal day-to-day activities, robotic surrogates will take our place doing. This leaves us humans free to do whatever else we like to do, which, in this movie at least, means lying prone on what looks like an operating room table while hooked up to a computer that's linked to our surrogate. Now, why anyone would want to lie down attached to a machine all day long just so they don't have to get up and go outside is totally beyond me. If the surrogates were able to function for us without having to be connected via computer to our brains while we're completely immobilized, then this would be a real technological marvel worth exploring. But humans turning into coach potatoes just so they don't have to dress up and leave their apartments? Where's the fun in that?

Anyway, the crime rate has dramatically declined, there's no racism or sexism or any other -ism, and all's well in this world in which humans live vicariously through their robot counterparts (which, by the way, doesn't have to look like them or even be of the same sex). But then into this idyllic world comes a man with a motorcycle and a souped up electrical gun thing who proceeds to take out the surrogate of the son of Lionel Canter (James Cromwell), the man who invented the surrogate technology.

But wait - he doesn't just fry the surrogate's electronic control panel. This extraordinary gun also kill the human controlling the surrogate. This hasn't happened before and so FBI Agent Thomas Greer's surrogate and his pretty partner Jennifer Peters (Radha Mitchell) are thrust into a homicide investigation that has them stumped. That is until they track down the killer to the designated area of the city where no robots are allowed to enter. Thomas' surrogate does and is beaten, shot, stabbed, and set fire to by the humans who hate technology. Breaking the treaty between those who like and those who hate surrogates gets Greer (Bruce Willis) kicked off the case and suspended. But he's not done, not by a long-shot. Foregoing the use of a substitute surrogate, Greer the human takes over investigating the murder and follows the convoluted, totally illogical trail back to the homicidal puppet-master pulling the strings.

The Cast

Now, seriously, who came up with the idea of throwing a crazy blond wig on Willis' surrogate? Really annoying, distracting, and goofy looking, the wig detracts from whatever point Willis is trying to make - although it does make more of an impact than anything else in the film. I'll remember the wig long, long after I've completely forgotten about the film itself.

The robot-free zone is ruled over by The Prophet and every single time Ving Rhames came on the screen as this character, I laughed. He's not supposed to be funny, but it was just such a bizarre character and Rhames delivered his lines in such a monotone state that I couldn't help myself. I kept expecting him to look at Willis and break out in Pulp Fiction-speak. Come to think of it, that would have made Surrogates worth the price of a ticket.

The rest of the cast - Radha Mitchell, Rosamund Pike, Boris Kodjoe, etc - are okay, nothing to write home about, and there's nothing particularly memorable about any of their performances.

The Bottom Line

Surrogates is plagued by too many problems to overcome, a pretty ridiculous plot being first and foremost on the list. I could never wrap my mind around the idea of a world in which people just want to lie there hooked up to a computer all day long for days on end. And that's all they do. Every single day. It all seemed so pointless.

Plus, Surrogates doesn't even get the action scenes right. The CGI is horrible in some places, in particular the chase scene with Radha Mitchell vaulting over cars and buses. And even the acting is uneven, with some playing their robot counterparts all jerky and mechanical while other actors opted to forego acting in any way like a robot and just play it completely human. It was jolting to watch the interaction between those two disparate acting approaches in scenes in which only surrogates were featured.

Surrogates is unquestionably one of the least interesting films of the year, and definitely not one of Bruce Willis' better efforts. The score's too intrusive, the acting's uneven, and the action's not up to that standards we expect from a studio feature. What a disappointment.

GRADE: C-

Surrogates was directed by Jonathan Mostow (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines) and is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence, disturbing images, language, sexuality and a drug-related scene.

Theatrical Release Date: September 25, 2009