Review: Surrogates, One Part Terminator, One Part iRobot With Just A Sprinkling Of Bladerunner
- Jun 7, 2017
- 2 min read
Imagine being able to control a robot with your mind. A humanoid robot, one almost indistinguishable from the real thing. You could choose what you look like, what you talk like, how strong or fast your are. Imagine the possibilities, law enforcement, military, all the jobs no one wants to do. Now imagine trying to cram all that into one movie.
It is the near future and majority of the planet inhabits the world through Surrogates, advanced robots controlled by an individual seated in a neural chair. These robotic avatars have, somehow, eliminated "violent" crime (destruction of a Surrogate is considered vandalism), with a near perfect utopia blossoming into existence. When the son of the Surrogates inventor is killed, via an attack on his Surrogate, Agent Greer (Bruce Willis) is called in to investigate a plot that runs far deeper than it first appears.
Surrogates suffers from two major problems. Number one, it tries to fit a lot of content and commentary into a single film and two, it isn't the most interesting component of the world it has created. While it is by no means a bad film, in fact it's pretty great for what it is, it does feel like a case of missed potential. Perhaps a TV show that has a considerable amount of time to tackle various issues and ideas would have been a better but, that's not what I'm reviewing.
As it stands, Surrogates is a well told if not perfectly executed film. Willis gives a solid performance as does the rest of the cast. It has enough varying situations to keep things interesting and a late film twist that's truly inspired. Between a reservation of people led by The Prophet (Ving Rhames) who refuse to utilise the Surrogates, corporate espionage and a pretty funny military segment, there's very little left untouched. What this means however, is that the films feels overfilled, like to much has been jammed into its relatively short run time.
At the end of the day, Surrogates it a good movie. Sure, it has its problems but it's hard to argue it isn't entertaining. Surrogates will keep you watching for its entirety and not once will you regret the decision.
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