Substitutos

I first viewed Surrogates upon its home format release and positively found it very ordinary. Viewing it again, with focus and in solitude, it proved to be a far better experience.

The action scenes are what you would expect for a multi-plex appeasing popcorner, loud, colourful and owing great debt to modern technology. Yet to dismiss this totally as one of those easy money making blockbuster movies is most unfair.

Surrogates oozes intrigue, even if it doesn't quite deliver on the smartness written on the page. The idea that in the future robotic alter egos can carry out our everyday mundane functions is cracker-jack, and it opens up a whole can of berserker worms.

This is not merely an excuse to have Bruce Willis running around exploding surrogate robots, as much fun as that is of course, there's a deeper emotional core pulsing away as Willis fights the good fight to make sure being human is not cast aside like a thing of the past, that as flawed as we are, hiding away in a surrogate is not the answer.

This axis of the story is beautifully realised by the plot strand involving Willis and Rosamund Pike as his wife, with both actors doing fine work to give it the required emotional heft. It may ultimately lose itself to a standard conspiracy plot, but there's intelligence within to make Surrogates a better film than it first appears. 7/10

As with most films, the trailer made this look like it would be something good – an action movie with an interesting sci-fi concept behind the world created for us. For this reason I was a bit surprised to see the "finishing time" of the film being listed as barely 90 minutes after the start time because I thought it would be hard to do all the things that the trailer proposed in such a comparatively short time. Leaving the film at the end, I found it easily fitted into the 90 minute time period and sadly it achieved this by not actually doing a great deal that I had hoped it would. The plot sees us in a world where the majority of humans live their lives from the comfort of their homes, experiencing life through the android clones (surrogates). Although pockets of humanity have banded together to resist this, generally they are seen as weirdos rather than having any sort of point. Due to the surrogates, accidental death has been nearly eliminated while crime is at an all-time low. However when the destruction of a surrogate leads to the death of the user, Detective Tom Greer is assigned to the case – a case that becomes even more high profile when the victim turns out to be the son of the creator of the surrogacy system.

The potential is there in the plot and the various things they put in around it (Tom's marriage, the loss of a child etc) but it doesn't really deliver on much of it. The subject matter isn't really that thought provoking, partly because it doesn't hold out a lot for consideration by the viewer but partly because the film doesn't even seem happy with its own world creation. The whole idea is full of holes to the point that the film can't hide them or distract from them for very long and you get the sense that it is rushing a bit before it all runs out through its cupped hands. This is a shame because it niggles the whole way through and becomes worse whenever we see what surrogates can do (their speed, strength etc) because you wonder why the world looks the same as it does when full of "normal" people. Outside of this though it is still an action film of sorts so one hopes for thrills of that side.

Unfortunately this doesn't really spark either. The running/jumping effects are not perfect and the scale of some of the action sequences means that some come over as being remote and not engaging or thrilling – a bit like watching someone else playing an video game that you don't really care about. It isn't bad though – the effects do still work, the action is still noisy and the plot is decent enough to at least not irritate – but that is the sort of level of film we're dealing with, one where my "praise" of it includes me saying its not too irritating! The performances sort of match the patchwork feel to the world and the film – it doesn't seem to be sure of itself and neither are they. Willis does his best (despite the wig etc he has to wear) but doesn't manage to balance the action with the character stuff and, thanks to the material, doesn't really deliver on either. Mitchell is so-so, as is Pike, while Cromwell essentially dials in a character he has sort of played before (but it made sense in other films) and Rhames is just plain odd.

Surrogates is not an awful film – but it is a distinctly average one thanks to the amount of things it half does. Whether it is the action, the substance, the effects, the performances or whatever, it all appears to be "OK" but never pushing for more than that. Improved focus, a stronger script and a longer running time could have made this a better film but ultimately it was just average.

Finally saw this and I'm with the majority here... a solid 7/10 film.

This surprisingly compelling sci-fi film takes a while to set up its universe but delivers down the stretch. It's borderline whether they establish enough credibility so as to invest real emotion in to the characters and buy in to the premise. If you allow yourself to buy in to the bizarre concept of living life through android duplicates, then the film works on a few levels. It's somewhat weak on certain of those levels but raises interesting questions concerning the level of our technological dependency as we live our lives. The emotional aspect of this movie plays better thanks to a fine performance by Bruce Willis. His character's journey through this bizarre world is obviously the heart of the film and it's written and portrayed very well.

I see many reviews here that denigrate the film, and a few that celebrate it. I believe it deserves neither fulsome praise nor vitriol, as it is a somewhat better than average film betrayed by bad choices.

I'll keep this short: The concept is decent, the execution is mediocre, the result is that I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

I would have graded this far higher had the creators spent more time making several of the characters more human (which is funny, given that "humanity" as compared to a more machine-like existence is a core concept of the screenplay), but they didn't. The only character in the film who achieves anything like true humanity is Bruce Willis', and this occurs only because the plot requires it.

When a film's construction and leverage depend on the very definition of humanity as it's core concept, leaving the humanity of most of the characters behind is something more than stupid -- it cripples the film.

This doesn't mean the film is unwatchable; it has enough elements of action, pathos, suspense & revenge to make it worth your time throughout.

But it could have been so much better, if not for so many poor choices.

When you have scores of people living their lives through their online personas, each competing with one another to appear more happy, more perfect, then this movie seems rather prophetic.

I see some complaining about the wooden performances throughout the film, ignoring the fact that this is the point. The surrogates emote very little, and are uncanny to us, who rely so much on non-verbal language to understand our interactions. The moments where actual humans are allowed to emote, especially the brief scenes with Rosemund Pike, shine all the more for it.

Is this movie high art in film form? No, but it's entertaining, it's fairly well paced, and its message is cogent. I recommend watching it at least once.