Surrogates (2009)
October 8, 2009 – 6:00 am | by lovellg
On paper Surrogates ticks all the right boxes for a Sci-Fi hit. The film tussles with themes of technological advancement, terrorism, social divides and religious subtext all in the condensed time frame of 88 minutes. Plus for part of the movie you even get to see Bruce Willis with a full head of hair!
Don’t let this fool you though, as the initial promise soon falls well short of expectations. Surrogates has a great concept based of a successful graphic novel and is directed by Jonathan Mostow of Terminator 3 fame. The running time however is its largest downfall as plot holes quickly squash away any initial promise the film displays.
The plot sees us taken to an unnamed year in earth’s future where society now consists of people laying in bed controlling their robot selves. (Think of The Sims with a pulse). However, society’s flawless lifestyle is quickly disrupted by an unidentifiable criminal who possesses a gun that can kill not only the robot, but the humans controlling it as well.
This is when we get introduced to Bruce Willis in not so unfamiliar territory as a rogue cop by the name of Tom Greer, who quickly goes investigating into the crime. He quickly abandons his dashing, flawless and full haired surrogate in the process to mix it up with balding stubble and a bad attitude, much to the chagrin of his loved ones and peers. By this point it’s best to just sit back and enjoy the pretty colours as the films cohesion quickly unravels before your eyes. Characters motivations go completely unanswered as you’ll find yourself somewhat looking across to the person in the seat next to you with a quizzical look. Don’t worry, you didn’t miss anything. These scenes likely did exist; they’re just probably laying on the cutting room floor somewhere.
Lack of cohesion aside, Surrogates is not a massive failure. The action scenes are slick and effective, but it largely suffers from style over substance. Large portions of the film are very dialogue heavy and will likely spark some fruitful coffee shop discussion about where society is heading, but generally you’ll always likely come back to the fact that the plot quickly lost any semblance of structure to be taken seriously.
I’m unsure as to whether Mostow intended this to be the 1950’s style B movie it very closely resembles. If you go into it with that attitude then you may be pleasantly surprised. Bad timing may be against the film with audiences likely going to watch it after Sci-Fi blockbusters such as Star Trek and more recently District 9, so expectations may be slightly misplaced. However I would say Surrogates is still a rental at best. Hopefully the DVD release will see an uncut version with the plot tightened up.
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