When I first saw the trailer of Surrogates, it got me excited. I found the movie to be exciting, specially that scene where all the surrogates suddenly fell on the ground. It is apparently based from a comic book with the same title. It looked interesting. I watched it and I was wrong.
The movie didn't really have much appeal to it. It didn't bore me but it didn't stir my interest either. It's one of those movies that you watch just to pass time.
Synopsis.
The movie is about a time when humans would stop functioning as themselves in society but instead they will be replaced by surrogates. Surrogates came about when some time in the future, a technology was developed which allowed humans to control robots just by their brains. This technology brought hope to those who doesn't have a complete set of body parts. The technology evolved until at one point, humans didn't see anymore need for them to go out of their homes to live their lives. They just need to buy themselves some surrogates and control it from their homes. Nice one.
The inventor of the surrogate is Dr. Lionel Canter (James Cromwell). He worked together with a partner, whose name I forgot, to start the VSI company. The company manufactured surrogates which, according to them, has various advantages. You'll be safer and you can choose who you want to be among others. If, say, your surrogate gets involved in a car crash, it is only the surrogate that 'dies' and not you. It just a robot that you control from your home, so no harm is done to you with that accident or is there? Dr. Carter has a son, and the movie started off with him being killed. Well, his surrogate was shot dead and this also led to his real body's death. This caused an alarm since this is the first time that the controller of the surrogate also died along with the death of his surrogate. Agent Tom Greer (Bruce Willis) was brought in from the FBI to investigate on this case. Throughout his investigation of the case he met the anti-surrogates, two-faced surrogates (surrogate technology can't take that out of humans I suppose) and lost his surrogate plus some car chasing and all those stuff.
Review.
The movie would have been good if only they added more depth into it. They didn't really focus much on building the story. They just presented the concept behind the surrogate but that's just about it. The storyline about the death of the surrogate founder's son is not really that much of a mystery. The story line's a bit predictable which made it really boring.
There's not much surprises here. The story of surrogate actually reminded me a bit of GI JOE at one point, minus the love story. The movie leaves you asking questions more than it makes you think about how the future for mankind will be. The acting of the cast is quite ok. Bruce Willis did a good joob in his scenes with his wife, but other than that, there's not much acting that he needs to do. He just needed to do a lot of running. This is an action film anyway, so didn't really expect any noteworthy acting and add to that the lack of depth in the story.
I actually managed to sleep for 15 mins while watching this,
a first for me..:D.
To be fair though, I was having a headache at that time.
But I like some of the things it raised.
Humans are mostly insecure. They always want something changed about themselves and are not contented with their lives. It showed with their choices of their surrogates. Fat people have slim surrogates while some gay guys have a sexy chick as their surrogates. Humans here were portrayed as dysfunctional, flawed and whacked as their normal selves but as their surrogates, they live a happy and perfect life.
As for some of the questions you might ask yourself once you leave the cinema:
How do those lazy ass surrogate owners get a fit body when all they do is lay down on their La-Z-Boy all day????
Does being smart always require you to be fat, not take a bath and wear reading glasses??
Will it really be possible to have our own surrogates in the future???
If so, how much is it?? Do I need to start saving up for it now???
As for me, Will my being lazy help me be a better surrogate user?
Will it also help that I always lay on my bed most of the day in operating my surrogate machine ?
Btw, they've got a nifty site.
Now, you can go and create your own SURROGATE.
They don't sell any yet though...
Rating:
6/10
