In the new film I, Robot... wait that isn't right. In the new
film The Stepford Wives... oops still not correct. The new movie Short Circuit...
darn wrong again! In the new film Surrogates, there we go, we find little
originality and even less of a plot line or attempt at decent film making. I
was excited about this film and was hoping for tip top sci-fi action and
stunning visual effects. What I got was a rehash of many other films and a
story line that probably looked good on paper but didn't make the transition to
the big screen.
In the hopefully not so near future we find a society where
humans no longer need to go outside to live their normal day to day lives. The
creation of surrogates that run completely off of your thought processes do it
all. All you have to do is lay in a recliner with some electrodes hooked up to
your head and you see and hear everything that your surrogate does. No worries
of crime or murder and accidental dismemberment. Get hit by a car? No problem,
just order a new surrogate. Plus you can create them to look however you want.
So all you have walking around are airbrushed beauties and hunks with not a
blemish to be seen. When someone creates a weapon that destroys the human host
when the Surrogate is "destroyed" it is up to an old school cop (Bruce Willis)
and the inventor of surrogates (James Cromwell) to figure out why.
This film is laughable in its attempt to create a futuristic
world where robots are the answer. For one, as elaborate as surrogates are they
have to cost a fortune to purchase and maintain yet everyone has one. What, we
all make millions in the future? Plus there are no homeless people or children
or animals to be seen anywhere in the movie. It's as if the lower and middle
class have all been left out. But what really made me laugh is that in this
lifestyle people lay in a recliner for 10 or 11 hours a day manipulating their
surrogates yet they never have to go pee or eat. The whole concept is so far
fetched that even for science fiction it is eye rolling stupidity.
The acting too is a joke. Yet I do not blame one of the cast
members for this. They are given lines and characters that are so thinly
created and woven together that even the moments of drama and tension fall
flat. Willis' character is supposed to be tired of the way things have become
and depressed about society. I now think he wasn't acting but just portraying
his feelings about this role he signed on to play. Even the look of the film
couldn't salvage it. The effects where so unimaginative and lack any sort of
creativity. The movie poster is the best visual of the entire film. They should
have let the person who designed that image work on the rest of the movie.
Surrogates is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of
violence, disturbing images, language, sexuality and a drug-related scene. This
film is not unsafe for your 14 and ups but I am sure in this day and age they
will find it more absurd than the parents. It is a film that steals everything
from past projects and tries to recycle them into this new and cutting edge
flick. Fail. Where the films they stole from succeeded Surrogates short
circuits completely. I give it 1 out of 5 nose jobs. Do not even waste your
time on this one. Even if I had a surrogate I would not force it to see this
movie. Unplug and run. So says Matt Mungle
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