Surrogates (2009)

Director:

Jonathan Mostow

Writers (WGA):

Michael Ferris (screenplay) &
John D. Brancato (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

25 September 2009 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Sci-Fi | Thriller

Tagline:

How do you save humanity when the only thing that's real is you?

Plot:

Set in a futuristic world where humans live in isolation and interact through surrogate robots, a cop (Willis) is forced to leave his home for the first time in years in order to investigate the murders of others' surrogates.

Plot Keywords:

FBI | FBI Agent | Robot | Murder | Investigation

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)

Bruce Willis	...	Tom Greer
Radha Mitchell	...	Peters
Rosamund Pike	...	Maggie
Boris Kodjoe	...	Stone
James Francis Ginty	...	Canter Surrogate
James Cromwell	...	Older Canter
Ving Rhames	...	The Prophet
Jack Noseworthy	...	Strickland
Devin Ratray	...	Bobby
Michael Cudlitz	...	Colonel Brendon
Jeffrey De Serrano	...	Armando
Helena Mattsson	...	JJ
Michael Phillip	...	Uniformed Cop
Danny F Smith	...	Victim (as Danny Smith)
Brian A. Parrish	...	Hard Hat (as Brian Parrish)

Also Known As:

"Vicarious" - Philippines (English title) (review title)

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence, disturbing images, language, sexuality and a drug-related scene.

Runtime:

89 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

USA:PG-13 (certificate #45570) | Ireland:12A | UK:12A | South Korea:15 | Finland:K-13 | Canada:14A (Alberta/Manitoba) | Canada:G (Québec) | Canada:PG (British Columbia/Ontario) | Singapore:PG | Norway:11 | Australia:M | Philippines:PG-13 (MTRCB) | South Africa:13V | Hong Kong:IIA | Sweden:11 | Portugal:M/12 | Japan:G | Argentina:16 | Netherlands:12 | Mexico:B | Taiwan:PG-12 | Germany:12

Filming Locations:

Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Company:

Touchstone Pictures

Trivia:

Some scenes were filmed at the Draper Factory in Hopedale, Massachusetts.

Goofs:

Continuity: After Greer gets beaten up up by the Prophet's guards, his scars keep moving and changing severity for the rest of the movie.

Quotes:

[first lines]
The Prophet:Look at yourselves. Unplug from your chairs, get up and look in the mirror. What you see is how God made you. We're not meant to experience the world through a machine.

Movie Connections:

Featured in "Late Show with David Letterman: Episode #17.14" (2009)

Soundtrack:

HiJacker

Illuminating allegory for online communications

One of the best CGI "upholstered" sci-fi flicks as yet. Very 80s, guess the idea (or even the entire William-Gibson-like script) slouched about for 20 years before it was realizable without appearing ridiculously B-grade. And Bruce Willis looks like Elton John for once, or vice versa :-) So much on the obvious.

Ah yeah, IMDb etiquette makes it hard to draw stringent conclusions to real occurrences, but all i can say is that if we web-nuts would turn off our machines for good, get up and simply walk outside our very flats, this world would be very different, and probably a better one, too.

Any artificial online identity, let it be 2ndlife or WOW, comprises a substantial momentum of addiction and unresistant devotion. To what? That's where this allegory jumps in quite helpfully.

We're no artificial surrogates yet, but already part of and surrounded by a more and more zombified public, where the MP3-downloads on our mobiles may actually mean more to our well-being than the unconcerned, indifferent, fear- and/or greed-powered ambition that accounts for most of our daily uprisings.

Crown of creation? Hell we are. Anyone noticed the missing comma?