Review: Surrogates (2009)

[Steve Rhodes]

SURROGATES
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2009 Steve Rhodes

RATING (0 TO ****):  ** 1/2

SURROGATES proves that having a great concept tells you nothing about the 
quality of the resulting production.  Always intriguing but never involving, 
SURROGATES manages never to be bad while still never being good either.  As 
it plods along, you'll likely have the same reaction I did, which was to be 
always quite curious about where the plot was heading, while never caring 
about any of the characters themselves.  When you leave the theater, you 
probably won't be smiling or frowning, but just shrugging your shoulders as 
I did.

Directed lamely and with little imagination by Jonathan Mostow, the movie is 
like a beautiful balloon that has lost all of its air.  This is surprising 
since Mostow has brought us such other very satisfying films as TERMINATOR 
3: THE RISE OF THE MACHINES and U-571.  This time, however, he is never able 
to breathe any life into the film.

Nonetheless, I was never bored, since the basis of the story is quite 
intriguing.  Set in a hyper-safe future, humans no long need to worry about 
harm to themselves, since they never leave home.  Relaxing in their favorite 
comfortable chair and using a machine hooked to their brains, they control 
their surrogates, which exist outside in what used to be thought of as the 
real world.

The surrogates generally look like their operators -- although they don't 
have to -- but younger and without any skin blemishes.  The effective look 
is more creepy than attractive.  The surrogates kept reminding me of a Botox 
abuser.  These surrogates are hard to kill and have some never completely 
defined superhuman skills, such as being able to effortlessly jump fifty 
feet in the air.  Their operators get to surreptitiously experience all 
traditional human activities, including sex, which is now really, really 
safe.

The predicament that the surrogates of police officers Greer (Bruce Willis) 
and Peters (Radha Mitchell) find themselves in is that someone has 
discovered how to accomplish the previously eradicated feat of murder -- not 
of the surrogates but of their human operators.  This had been assumed to be 
completely impossible.  While this setup might sound promising, the movie 
never does much with it, recycling lots of old story ideas into the script. 
Yes, there will be an evil corporation responsible for everything, and yes, 
at the head of the company will be a megalomaniac who is a despicable bad 
guy who is doing horrible things for what he considers the best of reasons.

SURROGATES has one major missing ingredient -- humor.  Taking itself way too 
seriously and paced too slowly, it makes its short running time feel much 
longer than it actually is.

SURROGATES runs 1:28.  It is rated PG-13 for "intense sequences of violence, 
disturbing images, language, sexuality and a drug-related scene" and would 
be acceptable for kids around 9 and up.

My son Jeffrey, age 20, gave it ** 1/2, remarking that he had never felt 
quite this way about a film.  With a who-cares kind of a look, he said that 
he didn't dislike the movie, but he didn't like it either.  He liked the 
concept but said the acting by both the humans and the surrogates was 
robotic.  Finally, he didn't like the ending at all, finding it to be little 
more than a popular cliche.

The film opens nationwide in the United States on Friday, September 25, 
2009.  In the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the AMC theaters, the 
Cinemark theaters and the Camera Cinemas.

Web: http://www.InternetReviews.com
Email: Steve.Rhodes at InternetReviews.com

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