|
 What
you get when you find deep-seated existential philosophy trapped in a
latter-day 1950’s B-movie? That would be Bruce Willis’ latest action
opus, Surrogates.
In a
near future scenario, similar to the one depicted in 2004’s I, Robot,
hardware is everywhere. Robots have taken to the streets doing all the
jobs and living the lives that we humans used to. The big difference in
the premise of Surrogates and I, Robot, is in the humanity beneath the
mecha. Growing from a combination of different sciences, robots now
serve as avatars for their human owners, going out into the world
fulfilling our existences as we - plugged into the machines via a
high-tech remote control chair - guide them from inside the safety of
our homes. Not everyone is thrilled with the advent of such displacing
technology. The Surrogates are seen by flesh and blood protestors as an
abomination on humanity that must be stopped. It’s this tension that is
at the center of a murder case involving the inventor of the Surrogates
and will bring Federal Agent Greer into a web of deception and violence.
Arriving at the crime scene with a head full of floppy blonde hair and
nonporous skin, our first sight of Bruce Willis is a startling and
funny. The first thought being, ‘is he kidding, he’s trying to look 10
years younger,’ and of course he is. The beauty of the Surrogates is
that they can head off to work or wherever, made into idealised versions
of whatever you want to look like, while you sit at home resembling an
unmade bed. The convenience of these creatures makes for a lazy
populace and one very easy to lead. This also enables the possibility
of identity theft of the highest order, which comes into big play
throughout the film. If someone decides to take over your Surrogate, how
would anyone know whether it was really you?
The
disconnect between human beings is felt keenly by Greer and his wife,
who coexist in the same house, yet never really see each other. Maggie
Greer locked herself in her room in a state of constant grief over the
loss of the couple’s young son. Living strictly through her Surrogate
enables Maggie to keep her husband as far away as possible, but still
within arm’s reach. Greer’s constant run-ins with the plastic people
and the twists that present themselves in his case convince him that
it’s time to put away his own Surrogate. In a world overrun by beings
that are really hard to destroy, Greer finds himself an endangered
species, fragile and unable to leap over tall buildings like his rubbery
avatar. For all the technology permeating the world, it’s Greer’s good
old-fashioned detective work that gets to the bottom of some very human
plotting.
Bruce
Willis still hasn’t lost his everyman charm after all these years. It’s
his very humanness that makes his war against the machines interesting;
the Average Joe up against objects of perfection. It’s his chops as an
actor that puts over the film’s mercifully infrequent dramatic moments.
One can’t help watch this and wonder what the next move for Willis might
be as Surrogates, though pleasing, isn’t difficult to have imagined
going straight to DVD.
Cribbing as much from sci-fi films like Invasion of the Body Snatchers
{1956} and The Stepford Wives {1975} as from the aforementioned I,
Robot, there is a B-movie cheesiness about Surrogates that is hard to
deny. From the occasionally questionable special effects – not every
robot is created equal in the future - to the hokey people first, even
if they’re living in filth and squalor homily, combined with the notion
that technology is the new Red Scare, there’s something not quite first
run about this one. As it is a Bruce Willis film, there are plenty of
requisite action scenes, mainly of our star getting pummeled in both
human and android forms. Somehow the inclusion of the robots led me to
expect more from what we were given, yet outside of some superhuman
freejumping and the light going out of a Surrogate's eyes when their
owner decides to cut a conversation short, there’s not all that much to
write home about with these robots. I think Cyberdine would have done a
better job. Still, this very familiar feeling mash-up of many films is
enjoyable as the slight popcorn chomper it was meant to be. Indeed,
director Jonathan Mostow is sagely judicious in his handling of the
film’s philosophical questions and tips always toward another well-paced
action sequence. Surrogates won’t tax the brain overmuch, but is
enjoyable as the modern day 1950’s B-movie that it is.
~ The
Lady Miz Diva
Sept.
25th, 2009
© 2006-2022 The Diva Review.com
|
