Surrogates

jason — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 16:35:24 +0000

Directed by Jonathan Mostow Surrogates is about a futuristic advancement in robotics in which people can now control their robot by sitting in a chair and putting on a VR helmet. The robot goes out and does everything for you while you sit at home and think about what you want your robot to do. The robot cooks, cleans, works, grocery shops, or whatever else you would typically do. If a car accident happens and your robot is destroyed you just send it in to get repaired. Basically its a concept for all the soccer moms out there who don’t want their “precious little children” to skin their knees while playing soccer so instead they have them sit in a room cooped up by themselves without any real social interaction or direct sunlight. The only problem is that people think they’re actually “doing something” when in fact its their robot doing everything and they’re just sitting around doing nothing. Think of the internet, where people can pretend to be whoever they want without leaving their homes. Now make a 3 dimensional representation of the person they want to be and have it walk around town. You have a surrogate now.

Surrogates stars Bruce Willis, James Cronwell, and Ving Rhames. It’s PG 13. It’s 88 minutes long. So here’s the plot in a nutshell. Bruce Willis plays an FBI agent who uses his surrogate to do everything. James Cromwell is the inventor of the surrogate program, which was originally invented for people with disabilities to be able to walk around like normal people. The only problem is his idea gets turned into something for everyone to use to “be safe.” Ving Rhames is the leader of the anti surrogate movement, in which he tells people they need to feel things and be real human beings or else they’re already dead. So, thanks to surrogates no one ever dies. It’s something like 2 years no one dies thanks to surrogates. Then the movie starts. There’s a weapon (which you’ve seen in the preview so I’m not spoiling anything) that can destroy both the surrogate and the “operator” aka the person sitting in a chair all pale and frail controlling the robot and not really experiencing life. The funny part is every operator looks like crap because they never leave their house. The surrogates are “perfect” meaning big muscles, no scars, perfect hair, perfect teeth, and everything else Tyler Durden is against. So Willis has to investigate how these people are being killed by this weapon and how to stop it. He gets caught in the cross fire and he loses his surrogate. Now he’s a human in a surrogate world. Stuff happens, stuff blows up, and Bruce Willis saves the day, much like he always does in his Die Hard films.

That’s pretty much the movie without really giving away any spoilers. Willis’ character is interesting as he doesn’t like using a surrogate yet he uses one all the time.

Overall it’s a good action film and it makes you wonder about our future as the human race as we will probably be moving toward something like this very soon, especially if the soccer mom’s continue to run the world to protect us from ourselves.

Pros: Bruce Willis, action flick
Cons: It’s one of those Bruce Willis against everyone movies, where everyone is a bad guy.

Verdict: 7.5 out of 10 – Worth seeing

If you order the above poster, we get a commission. As of 11/25, no orders, no commissions

The Semi Large Show » ving rhames

Surrogates