Lacking originality, Surrogates little more than skin deep

By Hannah Bosley     10/1/09 7:00pm

Imagine a futuristic world in which humans no longer travel beyond their front door. In this world, people stay at home plugged into a control chair, experiencing life vicariously through personal robot representatives. In the new sci-fi thriller Surrogates this far-fetched idea is brought to life.Based on the eponymous 2005 comic book series, Surrogates at first seems like a strange combination of The Stepford Wives and The Matrix. In a society where all public interactions occur via surrogates, physically-perfect robotic representations of humans, people have come to believe that the surrogate world is superior to their mere humanity. With the use of these surrogates, people experience "life, but better," as crime, injuries and other negative aspects of humanity are rendered virtually nonexistent.

However, this calm is disrupted when an unknown attacker begins murdering the surrogates, thereby frying the brains of their human operators plugged into their control chairs at home. As a result, FBI detective Tom Greer (The Sixth Sense's Bruce Willis) must leave his home for the first time in years to figure out what is going on and save surrogacy, and thus humanity, as the world knows it.

Well, at least that much makes sense. Throughout the film, the idea of surrogates is developed in a nonsensical, albeit entertaining, way. Plugging the human body into a control chair to relax while an ever-youthful, waxen-faced "surry" wakes up to perform both normal functions of life and superhuman feats on the human's behalf is an outlandish concept to start with. The audience watches these well-dressed, perfectly-toned robotic surrogates leap from the tops of moving vehicles, stoically withstand gunshot wounds and otherwise demonstrate their superhuman abilities in various battle sequences.

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Though the film has its entertaining moments, the imagery and cinematography used to portray them is trite and unoriginal. Many action scenes rely on the gory "shock factor" of humanlike surrogate "faces" ripped off of metal skulls, with green surrogate "blood" seeping from the robots' twisted wiring. Often, these scenes seemed bland, overdone and all too reminiscent of the Terminator franchise.

Although the power and advancement of technology remains a major premise of the plot, many of the film's visual effects have been seen in sci-fi thrillers for years, thus rendering them unimpressive, especially considering the futuristic theme of the film. While the visual effects are at least initially amusing, this type of imagery quickly becomes lackluster and monotonous.

Similarly, the fact that the characters all look like department-store mannequins makes it difficult to relate to them. During emotional moments in which relevant, thought-provoking conversations take place between the human Tom Greer and his wife Maggie's (Fracture's Rosamund Pike) surrogate, the chemistry between the actors is extraordinarily flat and unengaging, partially due to the fact that it's difficult to get past Maggie's comically-disturbing appearance.

While on an individual basis the actors perform well, the development of the characters feels rushed. They should have been further fleshed out to make the plot more engaging.

As far as science fiction movies go, Surrogates is slightly entertaining, but does not bring anything new or impressive to the table. It's a classic case of futuristic technology gone awry - nothing unforgettable, and something to watch only when you're plugged into your chair at home.

To watch the trailer or read more about the film, visit chooseyoursurrogate.com.

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