Surrogates

A world without limitations or boundaries; that's what the people are entitled to when they are plugged in to a robot that lives their lives for them. But, are the machines safe? That question is answered in Bruce Willis' new sci-fi action film, Surrogates.

Right off the bat we see that almost everyone uses a surrogate that they designed to live their life from the safety of their home. The function of a surrogate? Well, they can do anything that a human being can except for the fact that their strength and agility are perfect, allowing superhuman physical abilities such as the ability to jump off high places and endure large amounts of damage. If a surrogate is destroyed, the operator can simply get up and call in for another with no damage done to him/her. For this reason, there have been no homicides in years until a boy, who happens to be related to the son of the inventor of Surrogates(James Cromwell), dies when his Surrogate gets fried by a new kind of weapon. FBI agents Tom Greer(Bruce Willis) and Agent Peters(Radha Mitchell) are brought in to investigate this new danger. As more and more humans die due to this dangerous weapon, Greer must find out who is behind this plot before the lives of all surrogate users are threatened.

Surrogates is a movie that doesn't give much to talk about as far as CGI, script, action, etc. goes. The story is in most ways original even though it is a lot like both The Matrix and I Robot(in fact the man who played the inventor of the machines in I Robot played the same role in this film.) The script and acting in the movie is nothing special, the pacing is good, but overall most of the elements in Surrogates are mediocre. The good thing is the action and suspense, which seems to move the film along, kept me interested throughout the film. Bruce Willis has once again entertained moviegoers by letting them watch as he beats the crap-ola out of all the bad guys.

The main thing that set Surrogates apart from other sci-fi action films is that it does a great job of teaching us a message. Humans very often tend to hide behind our "masks" and try our best to conceal our past or who we really are so that others can't judge us. In Surrogates, the same thing happens but it's actually even worse. People choose to hide in their machine and become addicted to it to the point where they never want to leave their home so that the world can never see their real face and real personality. Throughout the movie we learn that we need to be strong and brave enough to let the world except us the way we are and not be afraid to be judged. This is the main reason why I liked Surrogates because it has a big moral that is easy to see and makes the film better all around.

Surrogates is a passable sci-fi action film that presents us with fun action and a great theme. The only thing is as I said before, the concept of Surrogates has been seen before in other films so the originality just isn't there. With that said, If I went to a movie rental store, this one would probably not be the one I decide to check out. 1.5 stars out of 4.

Surrogates is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence, disturbing images, language, sexuality, and a drug-related scene. The film has a running time of 89 minutes.