Surrogates was a film which performed well at the box office, and received mixed reviews. But one that no one talked about. Why? Because it’s been done before. The surrogate concept is similar to the cyber existence in The Matrix. The advanced robots, and clean environment is from I, Robot. The lone man escaping the system to show its flaws is from The Minority Report.

The film does not start amazingly well, copying the beginnings of The Minority Report and Catwoman in it’s news broadcast format. It makes you tone out of the movie, the only thing that popped into my head is that walking around as a robot would make airport security a pain in the ass. The story seems to fixate on using “surrogates”, robots you control and feel the sensations of as well, surrogates to yourself. You can do whatever you like in them, look prettier, do prettier stuff, and die if you feel like it. But then some motorcyclist (not very original) puts some buzz device to the head of the inventor of surrogacy’s son and kills not only his surrogate, but also fries his brain. Bad news, a mistake in the system… just like Minority Report…

However, things swiftly become more and more original, maybe in the same feel as the above films, but in a unique vein. Again its the moral consequences of advanced technology which becomes the emphasis, but unlike the above films, this is much closer to reality and the present. The sudden moral importance of humans against surrogates becomes apparent in a hostage scene in which a human is held hostage, preventing the usual tactic of simply rushing hostage takers, confusing the FBI. Bruce Willis, alone as a “meatbag” in a city filled with the surrogates controlled by those like himself suddenly is the physical inferior to every normal passer by, a far cry from his Die Hard series.

Up until the final confrontation the plot is actually fairly good. Believable, original…ish, and nice and centred upon a few characters. Then it blows all out proportion. The bad guy’s reasons are shabby, it becomes almost global in proportion to the point of almost Bond-esque absurdity. Except with Bond it was pulled off because it was what was expected, here it comes out of no where, and in no way does it pull it off. Though you do get to see the rather funny image of hundreds of surrogates simply falling on their faces. Funny, however, may not have been the desired effect.

Willis pulls off both a good shabby old man and a good youngster fairly impressively… but not great.

Some of the visuals however, are simply great and only something they could have built on this storyline, watching bodies pile up on the bonnet of a speeding car, all simply looking confused at their predicament is something which you will never see anywhere else. But again, its something that makes you smile, not wince. The director seems to have missed the point of making the moral question the important part of the movie. It makes you detached from it all, like the .50 cal scene in Rambo.

The acting and soundtrack don’t really add to anything at all. You get what you expect from Willis and the other top class acts, but nothing special. Some actors pull off being robots pretty damn well, in today’s film atmosphere that could score them a lot of roles. The soundtrack was usual atmospheric classical pieces which you don’t even notice until you concentrate. In fact that pretty much describes the film, nothing special. There is no way in which it stands out, nothing memorable (except the amusing nameless surrogates swept up in things), no dramatic finale. It just kind of… fizzled out.

The human “rebellion” just seemed pretty pointless, mostly just one granny with a gun. Also more amusing then I think it was supposed to be.

The writers went from a great idea to becoming out of their depth trying to match the desire for the epic nature they think all audiences have. The director took an enthusiastic swing… and missed the point of the movie entirely. Even failing to find a single flaw in the supposedly failed society which can give visual clues to its collapse. The human rebellion is almost brushed aside only half way into the movie and becomes so insignificant they may as well just have avoided mentioning them, streamlined it a little.

The plot went far further then it should have done. Unfortunately Minority Report did it better, stick to one city.

If you enjoyed this film half way in, like I did, stop when they reveal the bad guy and save yourself a massive disappointment. It could have been better, shame.