More often than not, in order to make a semi-reasoned judgment on a film, one needs a frame of reference. The particular movie screening of "Surrogates" that I attended was followed immediately by the screening of"Twelve monkeys", which was a frame of reference to futuristic worlds. Both worlds feature Bruce Willis as the main character and both deal with parallel existences. Sadly, only one of them harnesses the reference potential to its fullest.
Officer Tom Greer (Bruce Willis) seemingly chose the best timing to be a cop. The society he lives in, executed a foolproof method to combine the resources of the outside world and the safety of home. The Mechanical beings that the movie bears their name, are Human-looking robots that are physically superior and also way more attractive than us, human weaklings and are used very effectively as a channel through which the humans exercise their mental capacity from the safety and comfort of their own home. The major upside of our super ego dolls is that in the event of a car accident, shooting spree, St. Patrick's day parade or any hazardous event, they obtain the injuries or deaths that human weaklings would have endured so what ended in the past with death or crippling injury, now adds up to a restoration bill from VSI, the Mega-corporation that cashes in on the surrogates.
Basically things go quite well. Sure, a group of dissidents, lead by a an eccentric man known only as the prophet (Ving Rhames) create surrogates free compounds and the founder of the company seems reluctant of his own invention but with crime rates at an all time low and anxiety levels of Yoga instructors, the world of attractive, computerized zombies, is seemingly a happy one.
One day, though, Officer Greer and his female partner Peters (Radha Mithcell) discover that a demise of a surrogate was accompanied by the actual death of its operator, an event with literally no likelihood of occurring. Armed with that information and aided by a superior Surrogate, officer Greer escapes the plight of his troubled marriage and enters the dilapidating compounds of the dissidents. In the process, he reveals the vulnerability of surrogates, the frowned upon aspirations of their creator (James Cromwell who gives the most, and maybe only noteworthy performance in the movie) and discovers, along with the viewers (who are still human at this point in time) the grotesque world mankind sunk into in the name of technology.
The real a parallel world created by technology is a subject so vastly explored in movies it deserves its own Ganre. Whether this movie bare similarities to "The Matix" or "The Island" are irrelevant. The only relevant question is whether the parallel world depicted in this movie leaves the impression it was designed to leave and is the basic plot the premise of a masterpiece or a mere excuse for CGI.
The parallel world in this movie is depicted quite well I must say. The blank faces of the surrogates as they stroll along the streets of an anonymous metropolis (probably, Boston) leave the impression of the lifeless world that became a prison. Where the movie fails to leave the impression is the real world. With a script that occasionally stumbles on clichés and performances that are satisfactory at best , all the movie has to say about the modern day human dwellers is that they are derelicts in comparison to their surrogates.
That, my fellow human weaklings, is not a compliment by any means.
If you still wonder why I mentioned the screening of Twelve monkeys in the first place, let me explain. Surrogates is engrossing at times, often effective and visually impressive. What lacks in the movie is a spirit that is crucial to accentuate the true added values of the human imperfections. Since most of the human characters lack depth and the scenes they take part in, are short of subtlety, the movie becomes, well, the product of a surrogate. Some of you might suggest that this is an action flick and not an Oscar movie to begin with but the depiction of the human characters is crucial not only for the academy awards, it's vital to establish the real life from the programmed ones. Twelve monkeys, the futuristic world ridden by a mysterious plague is filled with the highly pretentious and border line hallucinatory direction of Terry Giliam and is hard to watch at times, but Gilliam's approach is the one that makes the characters jagged and frail inside as well as outside. The only observation one could make about the humans in the post-surrogates era is that they are into sweatpants.
In an interview Bruce Willis gave to Larry King (add your surrogate related snide remark here), he claimed that he's waiting for action films to re-invent themselves before he re-appears in them. If "Surrogates" was suppose to reinvent the genre than quite frankly it didn't but regardless of that, what modern movies are destined to reinvent is not the genre they originate from but the state of mind their viewers should be in. Surrogates provides an entertaining and even semi-intelligent (it is an action flick after all) but like the synthetic world of surrogates, this movie leaves something to be desired.
7.5 out of 10 in my FilmOmeter.
Officer Tom Greer (Bruce Willis) seemingly chose the best timing to be a cop. The society he lives in, executed a foolproof method to combine the resources of the outside world and the safety of home. The Mechanical beings that the movie bears their name, are Human-looking robots that are physically superior and also way more attractive than us, human weaklings and are used very effectively as a channel through which the humans exercise their mental capacity from the safety and comfort of their own home. The major upside of our super ego dolls is that in the event of a car accident, shooting spree, St. Patrick's day parade or any hazardous event, they obtain the injuries or deaths that human weaklings would have endured so what ended in the past with death or crippling injury, now adds up to a restoration bill from VSI, the Mega-corporation that cashes in on the surrogates.
Basically things go quite well. Sure, a group of dissidents, lead by a an eccentric man known only as the prophet (Ving Rhames) create surrogates free compounds and the founder of the company seems reluctant of his own invention but with crime rates at an all time low and anxiety levels of Yoga instructors, the world of attractive, computerized zombies, is seemingly a happy one.
One day, though, Officer Greer and his female partner Peters (Radha Mithcell) discover that a demise of a surrogate was accompanied by the actual death of its operator, an event with literally no likelihood of occurring. Armed with that information and aided by a superior Surrogate, officer Greer escapes the plight of his troubled marriage and enters the dilapidating compounds of the dissidents. In the process, he reveals the vulnerability of surrogates, the frowned upon aspirations of their creator (James Cromwell who gives the most, and maybe only noteworthy performance in the movie) and discovers, along with the viewers (who are still human at this point in time) the grotesque world mankind sunk into in the name of technology.
The real a parallel world created by technology is a subject so vastly explored in movies it deserves its own Ganre. Whether this movie bare similarities to "The Matix" or "The Island" are irrelevant. The only relevant question is whether the parallel world depicted in this movie leaves the impression it was designed to leave and is the basic plot the premise of a masterpiece or a mere excuse for CGI.
The parallel world in this movie is depicted quite well I must say. The blank faces of the surrogates as they stroll along the streets of an anonymous metropolis (probably, Boston) leave the impression of the lifeless world that became a prison. Where the movie fails to leave the impression is the real world. With a script that occasionally stumbles on clichés and performances that are satisfactory at best , all the movie has to say about the modern day human dwellers is that they are derelicts in comparison to their surrogates.
That, my fellow human weaklings, is not a compliment by any means.
If you still wonder why I mentioned the screening of Twelve monkeys in the first place, let me explain. Surrogates is engrossing at times, often effective and visually impressive. What lacks in the movie is a spirit that is crucial to accentuate the true added values of the human imperfections. Since most of the human characters lack depth and the scenes they take part in, are short of subtlety, the movie becomes, well, the product of a surrogate. Some of you might suggest that this is an action flick and not an Oscar movie to begin with but the depiction of the human characters is crucial not only for the academy awards, it's vital to establish the real life from the programmed ones. Twelve monkeys, the futuristic world ridden by a mysterious plague is filled with the highly pretentious and border line hallucinatory direction of Terry Giliam and is hard to watch at times, but Gilliam's approach is the one that makes the characters jagged and frail inside as well as outside. The only observation one could make about the humans in the post-surrogates era is that they are into sweatpants.
In an interview Bruce Willis gave to Larry King (add your surrogate related snide remark here), he claimed that he's waiting for action films to re-invent themselves before he re-appears in them. If "Surrogates" was suppose to reinvent the genre than quite frankly it didn't but regardless of that, what modern movies are destined to reinvent is not the genre they originate from but the state of mind their viewers should be in. Surrogates provides an entertaining and even semi-intelligent (it is an action flick after all) but like the synthetic world of surrogates, this movie leaves something to be desired.
7.5 out of 10 in my FilmOmeter.