‘Surrogates’ a fill-in for sci-fi (2.5/5)

Surrogates

Starring: Bruce Willis, Radha Mitchell, Rosamund Pike
Directed by: Jonathan Mostow
Rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of violence, disturbing images, language, sexuality and a drug-related scene.
Running time: 1 hours, 31 minutes.

If you’re looking for a run-of-the-mill action movie to kick back and chow popcorn to, then “Surrogates” should fit in nicely.

A surrogate is, by definition, a substitute. And in this case, “Surrogates” is a wanna-be substitute for just about any other movie that touches on robots or cloning. This Bruce Willis flick is a kind of watered-down version of “The Island,” missing the kind of morality questions that made the clone film transcend a typical movie.

The plot is more of an excuse for spotlighting the futuristic world, which is often the case in movies like this. It has a very interesting premise but fails to capitalize on it.

“Surrogates” takes virtual reality to a whole new level. People live their lives through robots, controlling them with their mind by hooking up to a chair. They’re able to stay home, safe from the world, while they (via their surrogates) go to work, go shopping, go clubbing and, in general, interact with the outside world.

Bruce plays Tom Greer, an FBI agent who is investigating the first murder to occur in a very, very long time. Someone has found a way to kill people via their surrogate, something that, as a legal representative for VSI (the “surrogate makers,” if you will) noted, “would entirely defeat the purpose of surrogacy.”

But there are too many questions in a movie like this that need to be answered well in order for the audience to believe it. And “Surrogates” just never manages to push itself into the realm of reality.
The movie includes little nods to our current state of being with the surrogate “salons” where the machines can get new looks as well as the rental surrogates that resemble the crash test dummies or Star Wars’ C-3PO.

And there are acute moments of revelation where an attractive, young woman surrogate is actually an overweight, middle-aged man. But that sort of interference with reality is something that should have been expanded upon but wasn’t, used merely as a punchline instead of a plot device.

As the introduction with Agent Stone shows us (“Sorry, I was in the can”), the surrogates are not a replacement for the human body. But again, the movie picks on these similarities to our current interactions through computers, but doesn’t pursue them, as it should.

As my boyfriend will tell you, I’m not a big Bruce Willis fan. I often forget which movie of his I’m watching because he is ever Bruce Willis and not the character he is trying to portray. But I can’t really blame him. The action genre has a real difficult time in characterization for whatever reason.
Willis tries here, but the quick pace of the movie holds him back from really connecting with the audience. You won’t care about the characters or what happens to them, you’ll only want to know who’s behind the murders and why.

Not surprisingly, “Surrogates” was directed by Jonathan Mostow, man- behind-the-camera on the embarassingly terrible “Terminator 3,” so why anyone would give him a second chance at a sci-fi movie is beyond me.

This could have been a very good, philosophical film. Instead, “Surrogates” is entertaining and will interest you while you’re watching it, but it won’t have any lasting impression. If you’re interested in this type of plot but crave more depth, pick up a copy of Neal Stephenson’s book “Snow Crash.”

2 1/2 of 5 stars