Future 'Surrogates'

The movie idea of human beings having the capability to move other human-like robot things has had a resurgence this year and last. Look no farther than "Gamer", "Avatar" and now "Surrogates", which explores the world run by robots. Except the robots are controlled by humans, who have become so boring and lazy and scared of dying that they use robots to complete everyday tasks.

The surrogates in the film are controlled neurologically by the humans, usually from their homes. Beautiful surrogates can be bought; sometimes a female surrogate is actually being controlled by a man. The advantage of the surrogate is they go to work and do all the things a person normally would, except you sit and home and control it. Sounds boring huh? I guess this is some idea of the future.

The surrogates are unable to die, and in the film, crime has been virtually reduced to nothing. Surrogates record everything they see, leaving concrete evidence in the event a crime is committed.

Somehow, a loophole is found, and a surrogate's human controller is killed after the surrogates brain is zapped by a light-emitting weapon that in turn, turns the human's brain to mush. That human also happens to be the son of the inventor of surrogates, who has had a bad break from his former company. Enter Bruce Willis and his hair-having surrogate as Tom Greer, one of the detectives investigating the murder case. He's having marital problems, not to mention investigating a crime that shouldn't have occurred.

Important to consider is that there ARE human's in this future world that enjoy being themselves and hate the fact that people have bought into this surrogate lifestyle. This people live on "reservations" where the robots are not allowed and they have some sort of sovereignty. Sound a little like "Avatar"?

Anyways, the movie follows Tom's attempts to solve the murder, coming to grips with not using surrogates and dealing with his marital issues.

This is a pretty bland, predictable film that doesn't exactly make you think, but it has some decent action and the premise is kinda cool. Ving Rhames plays "The Prophet", the leader of the humans, so that's pretty sweet too because he's a good actor. But I wasn't exactly taken away with this film. Like at the beginning. Really? Every person IN THE WORLD can afford a surrogate? Those starving children in Africa prefer a robot over food? I don't think so. I guess it's a small detail, but still: DUMB.

4 out of 10 stars

Here's the trailer: