Surrogates

Surrogates is to some extent a B- movie with a grade-A budget. It is based on an interesting idea that aptly allegorizes the artificiality of contemporary peroxide-and-shopping culture. However, it needed a more ambitious screenwriter who would write something more than an action-packed forgettable flick made marketable thanks to Bruce Willis. In the film, we find motifs familiar from Children of Men (“dreadlocked guys” on the margins of society) and the attractive high-tech visuals of I, Robot, and it wants to be deadly serious like Spielberg’s Minority Report. However, unlike those movies, Surrogates does not dare to take a single step in its own direction and prefers to work with proven twists, tries to look clever by being unnecessarily contrived and at least in one (the final) scene, it is even ridiculous due to the futility of its screenplay. The character of the dreadlocked “Prophet”, played by Ving Rhames, is not well executed; Willis himself is alright as the only link between the viewer and the real world of living people, but unfortunately without any cool lines or humor, which could have provided some needed comic relief. (15/09/2009)

I like positive sci-fi and because the genre has received a nice beating from fantasy in the last two decades, and pure sci-fi films are currently quite rare. I should thus appreciate any film not teeming with wizards, elves, dragons, or mythical powers. Unfortunately, a lot more is needed for a quality experience and one of the fundamental things I insist on is for the fantastic world to be logical and fully functional within its system. Unfortunately, Surrogates completely fails in this regard. Practically the whole film submits to the superficial spectacle with slick visuals, top-notch special effects, a star-studded cast, and an overall bombastic production. However, the screenplay is full of holes and I would have to completely turn off my brain for this spectacle to become bearable for me. Some films only take a part of their source material and forfeit deeper meaning, but if they function within their invented world, I have no major objections to a popcorn spectacle. But Mostow's world is built on nonsense. It is simply subservient to us watching flashy chases ending with a helicopter crash or robot surrogates jumping from one car to another. It is even more disappointing considering the involvement of several excellent actors and the wasted budget. Overall impression: 25%. (30/04/2010)

It would probably have been better if they hadn’t given away almost the whole movie in the first clip, but in any case I reasonably enjoyed myself. Some of it is seriously gourmet style (yep, the chase with the one-armed Bruce), but most of it was more like marzipan on an over-sweet cake. The story is clearly not fully thought through, even though I’m ready to believe that as a comic book it was at least 50% better. Also, I didn’t much like Mostow’s plastic vision. Did they all really have to look THAT artificial? (12/12/2009)

Definitely above average. Neither Bruce Willis nor Jonathan Mostow disappointed and they made a quality summer spectacle, but it didn't hit the movie theaters until the autumn. Oh well. The film went by pleasantly fast, 90 minutes felt like nothing, it hardly lost momentum and everything in it was clear and nice to look at. I have no reservations about the action scenes and effects, or the actors and actresses. Don't expect philosophy, don't expect "another Matrix or I, Robot", expect fun with a bit of thought put into it. (16/10/2009)

If Mostow has been considered a solid craftsman up to now, he will now be considered a desperate routinist... and a thief to boot. As long as it still follows the popcorn rules à la I, Robot, we can enjoy the slightly B-movie atmosphere, which is carried by Willis's cynical smile and funny toupee. Then we get some mentoring according to Issac Asimov and Phillip K. Dick in the visual diction of Terminator 3 and everything goes to hell. It wouldn't have had to be this way if someone had bothered to add some extra runtime, given the characters some life, and if the film had at least one memorable scene. The result is the most ridiculous blockbuster of the year, which I predict will become a cult film in a few years and a must-have in the "guilty pleasure" collectors' kit. (23/10/2009)