Surrogates

As anyone who knows me well knows, I have a very real fear of the world being taken over by machines. Call it Terminator syndrome if you like, but the machines are coming and they will be ushered in by our own obsession with robotics. Therefore, movies that paint robotics in a light that is damaging, are usually good in my book. The more Science Fiction that condemns robotics, the safer I feel about our chances as a human race to get smart enough to stop pushing artificial intelligence. So, in comes Surrogates, a sort of I, Robot-esque movie starring Bruce Willis in a bad wig. It comes from a Graphic Novel which meant the movie was probably not going to be dark and/or deep enough to do it justice. Now, I have not read the Graphic Novel, but I know Graphic Novels and this probably deserved an R rated film. However, we get a pg-13 movie, even though two of August's biggest movies were rated R and October's first hit was also rated R. R rated movies can work people! Okay, enough with the sidetracks.

14 years before the main action of this movie, a man named Cantor(James Cromwell) created a way for people to connect a robot to their brains to control the robots, but experience everything the robot experienced. It started as a way for wheelchair bound people to walk, or for amputees to still experience a full life. Before long, the military got in on the action and then the rich public and then eventually it was available to everyone. When the main action picks up, the world is very clean, and void of many crimes, but no one in the world is actually human. 99% of the population uses a "surrogate" to do everything, while the actual humans sit in their rooms connected to a computer. The surrogates do not feel pain and no matter how much damage they take, the owners do not feel any of it. it makes it so people can do anything they want. However, things go wrong when a weapon shows up that kills not only the surrogates, but the owners back in their chairs. The F.B.I picks up the case and agents Greer(Bruce Willis)and Peters(Radha Mitchell) are in charge. Greer and Peters do the usual agent thing, but things start to get very fishy when Greer ends up in a dread zone. Dread Zones are the small areas where people who are not part of the surrogate movement live. These are people who want to end the surrogate movement and they are most likely behind this weapon, or are they?

Surrogates moves at a brisk 90 minutes, but that is kind of the problem. There is a lot that could be done with this story. There are deeper darker psychological issues that could have been examined, but instead we get a 90 minute pg-13 kind of generic action movie. That is not to say the movie is bad, it just could have been more. By the time the characters started having true discussions about what it meant to be alive and what surrogacy really meant, it was time for the climatic car chase, fight scene and big twisty reveal. Things were rushed in order to fit this box of what an October pg-13 movies is supposed to be. It satisfies on that level, sure, but why couldn't it have been more?

If nothing else, Surrogates makes me want to seek out the source material. I am sure the world created in the Graphic Novel deals more in the darkness, whereas the movie can only touch up on it. In the movie there is a scene where the surrogates are "jacking" which is a drug, where they shoot electricity through themselves for a very pleasurable effect. I am sure in the novel, this is made into something more and I wanted something more. I wanted to know more about the motives behind these people never wanting to go outside. For what it is, Surrogates presents an interesting future and then sets out to wonder if it is a good future we are headed for.

Bruce Willis and company do well enough with the material, although Willis is kind of phoning it in, as he has a habit of doing these days. The CGI is pretty good, but it is a bit goofy to see a bad hair having Bruce Willis robot leaping through the air like a gazelle. That is not the fault of the movie, just me thinking John McClaine leaping through the air is funny looking. The surrogates are all very sexy, but the scenery is filled with gorgeous people of both genders, but the robots have this creepy shine on them so all of these gorgeous creatures are too shiny to be erotic, in my opinion. This is probably not the fault of the movie, but of my own eyes being creeped out by shiny people. Ving Rhames adds a nice touch as a prophet of the Dreads, but he is mostly wasted.

Surrogates is not too exciting, too game changing, or too cerebral, though it could have been all three of those things. It is a pleasant enough movie going experience, but I was never on the edge of my seat. The twist is incredibly predictable, but that is not really a concern of mine. What was a concern of mine was the wasted opportunity to do something interesting. 2009 has offered some really great examples of interesting film making and Surrogates could have added to that, but instead it will be a generic I, Robot without Will Smith and the budget.

Final Grade: C-