Surrogates (2009) Movie Review, Trailer, Film Still and Poster

USA 2009
Director: Jonathan Mostow
Cast: Bruce Willis, Radha Mitchell, Ving Rhames, Rosamund Pike, Jack Noseworthy, James Cromwell
Rating: PG-13
Release Date: 25 September 2009
Running Time: 1 hour 24 minutes 16 seconds

The Movie Review

Surrogates film still 1


SURROGATES
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I was and still am a huge fan of Doraemon the robotic cat of the future in the Japanese manga. But aside from the fun that I had reading Doraemon, I was kind freaked out that 30 years to 40 years after the book was released in the mid 70's, some of the imaginative innovative tools in Doraemon have finally been realized into real tools that we could use. Even invisibility cloak is in the process of perfection. But hey tools are useful, right? But how about Androids? Because the existence of Android in many mangas and comic books is gradually coming to life now. Why do human needs to enslave everything? In Doraemon's world, the population of androids or human robots are immense, and I sure want some of those robots to do my house chores but I sure as heck don't want them to be me. Surrogates, which is a movie based on comic book series by Robert Venditti & Brett Weldele, trying to depict a world where robots co-exist with human being. With a budget of $80 million and headlined by Bruce Willies, I sure had high expectation in Surrogates, and quite luckily, Surrogates could still amuse its viewers with some points that you're willing to overlook first though.

The year is 2017, the use of Robots and Androids is getting out of hand. Bruce Willis stars as s detective with marriage crisis because his wife thinks it's better to be together as surrogates. The people in the future controls their surrogates from a device called as Stim Chair, a dentist-like chair where people can control every motion of their androids/surrogates/units. With Surrogates people can do any dangerous activity without getting any slight of hurt just from the comfort of their home. While there are also people devoted to ban the use of surrogates led by what the followers nicknamed him 'the prophet' (Ving Rhames). And they live separately in enclosed area free of robots. Surrogates movie screenshot 2

However, recently a man has died bloodily whilst in his chair due to his brain got liquefied when his surrogate was shot with a mysterious weapon by a mysterious man. Some users start to question the safety use of surrogates and the tension arises between the pro and con. Who and what is the killer's intention? What will happen if human soul is traded with wires and machine?

Surrogates movie screenshot 3

Not new, not a novelty, and not groundbreaking, but man does Surrogates give its audience great sneak peek into a possible future. It's a very promising premise with a lot of facet to explore. But it feels the overall presentation is cluttered with unorganized ideas. The biggest challenge Surrogates had to overcome was to make this idea of highly-possible future looks appealing. But the drama, the action scenes and directing is generic with some scenes even to the point of lackluster. And speaking about the acting, probably to the writer's defense, the use of surrogates means that the actors and actresses are justified to be wooden and stiff? I don't know but Bruce Willis does look beat in this sci-fi film.

Of course it's still a fun journey to see the twisted future, and arguably better than imagining it just from reading a comic book, with people buying surrogates just like buying a DVD player, several booths of quick-charge scattered around the city, and how it's hard to bump into a real human, it's all still interesting of course. If you're an undemanding sci-fi fan, I think Surrogates would be a fine rent.