Surrogates

Surrogates (2009) – on rental. There was critical acclaim heaped on Surrogates when the film was screening in theatres here last year: but I gave it a miss back then for a really dumb reason. Don’t laugh now – but I skipped it only because the film was a disappointing 89 minutes long, and I concluded it wasn’t worth $10 and decided to catch it on rental instead. I like long films – make me feel it’s worth the price of admission.:)

Seriously though; Surrogates is a sci-fiction thriller and includes elements and elements already seen in several other movies of this type,including The Matrix, I, Robot and The Island, all from about the last decade, and even the recent Avatar. This film is set in the near future – the year 2017 where robot surrogates are used in place of human beings to do just about everything: at work and even at war. The robot avatars are ‘driven’ through mind-links with humans who remain in their safe confinements of home. Not everyone’s thrilled with this technological evolution though: humans who resist the use of robotic surrogates have formed city enclaves, and tensions between them and the rest of the world are high. The leader of the enclave is known as The Prophet, played by Ving ‘M.I.’ Rhames in hilariously funny dreadlocks.

Now, these robotic surrogates are supposed to have fail-safes that protect their operator from harm in the event that the surrogates are injured or destroyed. However, the opening scenes of the film establishes that this is no longer the case: two surrogates are destroyed, killing their operators as well in apparently brutal fashion (the violence fortunately is all off-screen). Bruce Willis and Rahda Mitchell play FBI agents Greer and Peters, and who’re assigned to the case. And soon enough, both discover a plot and conspiracy that’s bigger than just two seemingly unexplained incidents, and which involves even millions of lives.

Visually, the film doesn’t spell out loud that This is the Future, aside from those eerie-looking robots which look like anatomically and facially perfect representations of their human operators. Case in point: Rosamund Pike plays Greer’s wife, but as stunningly beautiful is this British actress in person, her avatar ironically looks like an awfully creepy version of the real person. From the looks of it, CG was used to airbrush (or something) each actor’s facial features. Sort of how Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen were digitally de-aged in the opening scene of X-Men: The Last Stand but somehow in disturbingly hair-raising way.

The film’s 2017 world also looks pretty much like today’s 2010, and there aren’t space ships or jet propulsion cars flying about. But the moralistic issues and themes of technological use are right center and forefront in the narrative: when does the use of technology come to a point where we lose our humanity. There’s a terrific subplot of Greer’s marital relationship with his wife whom he has not seen in person for years, but only her avatar – his wife has not stepped out of his room through all these years, and for him, her perfect avatar is no substitute.

The 89 minute run length of the film though I think works against the film. I would have like the film to run a lot longer with a more thorough fleshing out of several story points, including of a very interesting law enforcement operative who has the power to remotely disconnect – with the appropriate warrants – robot surrogates from their operators. In a couple of other cases, key story points needed to have been explained but were glossed over: like how that unique weapon actually results in the violent killing of operators.

Still, the film was a terrific ride. I’ll recommend this for any one who like their sci-fiction thrillers with thoughtful themes.