Movie Review – “Surrogates”
Reviewed by Gary Pollard (first aired on RTHK Radio 4’s “Morning Call”)
”Surrogates” was released worldwide on pretty much the same day. No reviewer had been allowed to see it, or write about it at least, before that release. That’s a pattern of distribution that almost invariably shows a studio has no confidence in its movie. If you expect good reviews, you get them out there before the film hits the screens.
There were a couple of other warning signs. The movie is under 90 minutes long, often a sign of serious re-editing, and one of the heads of the studio that produced it was fired from his job a week before it opened. I did not have high expectations.
Well “Surrogates” may not be quite as big a stinker as most films released in this way, but it is mediocre. And that’s a pity, because there are some good ideas here that director Jonathan Mostow and his John Brancato and Michael Ferris don’t make the best of. The movie is based on Robert Venditti and Brett Weldele’s graphic novel of the same name. I do not know whether that source material made more sense or was more gripping.
It’s set in the not-so-distant future. People have become obsessed by the use of “surrogates”, essentially robots that they control by lying in their apartments on a special “stim-chair” with wires attached to their heads. Not only can your surrogate be younger, handsomer, more athletic than you, it also does not feel any pain. And if it should happen to get involved in an accident or killed, well you’ll be fine. Many people choose not to leave their apartments at all, having become virtual shut-ins, while – in their robot bodies – they go to work and party.
For some, it’s not such a bad existence. But there is also a group of dropouts that rejects surrogacy, led by a mysterious figure called the Prophet (Ving Rhames). They live in special areas of the major cities where robots are not allowed.
As “Surrogates” opens, two young and attractive robots are attacked by a leather suited individual wielding some kind of electrical gun. Not only does it cause the circuitry in the robots’ heads to fry, it feeds back to their operators and liquefies their brains. FBI agents Thomas Greer (Willis) and Jennifer Peters (Radha Mitchell) investigate the case. They find that one of the murdered victims is the son of Dr. Lionel Canter (James Cromwell), who invented the surrogates. Even more creepily, the other one, whose robot form was an attractive and shapely blonde in her early twenties turns out to have been an obese middle-aged man.
It doesn’t take Greer long to track down the murderer, and the movie’s first formula action sequence soon follows. During that chase, Greer’s robot, that looks like a much younger smooth-skinned Bruce Willis is destroyed. Partly because of this, ands partly because much of the investigation will have to be done in the no robot zone, he gets out of his apartment and continues his work in the flesh.
Greer’s wife Maggie (Rosamund Pike) who – like him is mourning the death of their son in an accident – does not like the fact that he is trying to head back out into the world. For her, real life is too painful. The glamorous existence of the surrogates is much more appealing, and allows her to live vicariously while remaining in isolation. Most of the time she only allows even her husband to see the younger, prettier, robot version of herself. There’s a nice emotional and psychological element here that the movie should have concentrated on instead of the half-baked action scenes.
One of the problems with the surrogates themselves is that they are rather bland. That means that much of the interaction in the movie is pretty bland, as Greer is not talking to real people but to robots. And you never know who is operating the surrogate with whom you are interacting anyway. A character who seems to be one race or gender or age may turn out to be quite different. Sometimes three different people you meet may all be operated by the same person. At others, a surrogate may be operated by different people at different times, so it’s almost as if they are possessed. This could lead to a world of shifting certainties that would have been fascinating to explore. Mostow and his writers do not decide to explore it, but to simply use these ideas as plot devices in what becomes a very formula script.
In execution, “Surrogates” is lackluster, and there is a problem that once you realize most of the characters you see are not flesh and blood there is no reason to care about what happens to them. It’s mostly boring. Beyond the fact that it’s boring though, there is a problem that the film somehow looks recycled. There are ideas here from such movies as “Westworld”, “A.I.”, even “Blade Runner”.
All of these ideas were better explored in their original films. And there’s a lack of logic about the whole thing anyway. If a surrogate can’t be hurt, or convey pain to its operator, how can it feel pleasure? The movie tells us that once surrogates became popular, crime disappeared. But why would it, when you could rob banks, rape or get into fights with no consequences to your body? And if most people never leave their apartment or get out of bed, why don’t they all get obese and out of shape?
If the movie kept you involved throughout its length, maybe you wouldn’t stop to ask yourself questions like these, but as it can’t make up its mind whether it’s a whodunit, a thriller, an action movie, a sci-fi movie, a social critique, or a psychological melodrama, you begin to wish that you could have stayed at home in bed and sent a surrogate out to the cinema instead.
The overall impression I get is that “Surrogates” was seen to have problems quite early in the process, but that no one bothered to iron them out, hoping that throwing action scenes at the audience would distract them. Unfortunately Mostow is not a particularly good action director.
“Surrogates” may not be as screamingly awful as “Haeundae”, the movie I reviewed last week, but there really isn’t anything about it to make you glad you decided to go to the cinema either. Maybe catch it on DVD later.
