One of my favorite action stars, Bruce Willis, plays a FBI detective in this science fiction thriller set about 15 years in the future. In Surrogates, scientists have developed a way for people to live out their lives through robotic surrogates that are controlled by the user from a chair in their own homes. The surrogates look real, and transmit all the senses back to the user. The allure of being able to walk around looking like a cast member on Baywatch and not being able to be hurt etc, enticed nearly everyone world wide into living their entire lives through their surrogates. Willis gets called in when someone killed a surrogate (vandalism) but somehow managed to kill the user as well at the same time. This is the first 3 minutes of the movie. From that point on, the movie went down hill.
Most of the acting was as stiff and lifeless as you would expect from a robot. I'm sure that was probably intentional, but considering the surrogates are supposed to relay every emotion and sensation it just didn't work for me. The cinematography was acceptable however the special effects were laughable. The effects were surrogates were damaged to reveal the inner robotics was very lame considering how far special effects have come since Terminator. Men in Black, Terminator, 2, 3, 12, Sarah Connor Chronicles all did it better.
The plot was weak and very predictable. Most of the dialog screamed "This is going to come up later!" I won't even get into the totally ridiculous notions that everyone controlling robots somehow reduced crime to about 1% of historical levels, the human only reservation cities where the US Government has no authority, or how 97% of the US population could afford a fully functional synthetic android and base station to live out their lives in.
I thought about "unplugging" from Surrogates, but stuck through it vainly hoping for some reward in the form of a surprise ending, etc. Sadly there was no such luck. I would highly recommend that you not waste your own money on the film. If you want to watch it, borrow it from a buddy or catch it on Netflix. I give it a 6 / 10.
Most of the acting was as stiff and lifeless as you would expect from a robot. I'm sure that was probably intentional, but considering the surrogates are supposed to relay every emotion and sensation it just didn't work for me. The cinematography was acceptable however the special effects were laughable. The effects were surrogates were damaged to reveal the inner robotics was very lame considering how far special effects have come since Terminator. Men in Black, Terminator, 2, 3, 12, Sarah Connor Chronicles all did it better.
The plot was weak and very predictable. Most of the dialog screamed "This is going to come up later!" I won't even get into the totally ridiculous notions that everyone controlling robots somehow reduced crime to about 1% of historical levels, the human only reservation cities where the US Government has no authority, or how 97% of the US population could afford a fully functional synthetic android and base station to live out their lives in.
I thought about "unplugging" from Surrogates, but stuck through it vainly hoping for some reward in the form of a surprise ending, etc. Sadly there was no such luck. I would highly recommend that you not waste your own money on the film. If you want to watch it, borrow it from a buddy or catch it on Netflix. I give it a 6 / 10.
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