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:

Murder | Robot | Futuristic | FBI Agent | FBI

Cast

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:

88 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

Filming Locations:

Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Company:

Touchstone Pictures

Trivia:

Radha Mitchell read the comic book while filming.

Goofs:

Factual errors: When Greer is talking with the colonel in charge of the surrogate soldier program, the colonel's right shoulder shows a Ranger qualification tab. This tab should actually be on his left shoulder.

Quotes:

[last lines]
Male Newscaster: Still no official word on when, or if, surrogate services can be restored. It appears, at least for now... that we are on our own.

Movie Connections:

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

Soundtrack:

HiJacker

Basically entertaining

It's a great concept. In the future, the Sims style online gaming, where people live vicariously through characters, has evolved to living out real-life, in the real world, via surrogate robots. Everybody stays home all the time, 24/7. They work, play and travel via their surrogates, from the comfort of their home.

I'm not spoiling anything here -- this all happens in the first 5 minutes. The result of this new era of existence is the dramatic drop in violent crimes, sexually transmitted diseases, death by accident, etc.

Well, it's a great concept. And the CGI is good. Because of the plot, every character is insanely pretty, so the screen is filled with beautiful people.

But... it just... doesn't... quite... gel. The whole thing feels like a cool episode of Star Trek, or something on TV. The story is not riveting. I didn't really care about the characters. The timing was off; things either came too late (I was bored, expecting them) or so fast I couldn't really appreciate.

Surrogates lacks that wow-factor.

Example of bad timing: At the start, one wonders, "What do the users really look like? Anything like like their surrogate robots?" I would expect that, at first, we see Bruce Willis, just some facial hair which his robot doesn't have. Then, eventually, we see that he is older than his robot, so he's "cheating" on age too. Even later still, maybe we'd see an obese person at home posing as an athlete via a surrogate which looks nothing like him. Well, "Surrogates" skips all that build up and goes straight for the punchline: within 10 minutes we see a hot chick robot making with a young man; turns out the hot chick is actually slovenly a middle-aged man. Any twists to come later, in this variety, loses all punch.

Worth a rental.