Watch Surrogates (2009)

Bruce Willistakings to proverbial form as the grizzled, disenchanted cop in Jonathan Mostow's expectation thriller "Surrogates". Clocking in at a bend ninety minutes, Surrogates takes a individual come near to the done-to-death avatar basis in discipline fiction. This occasion the avatar is a robot in the real world, operated by a human being via gadget la-z-boy at home. The idea is summed up in literally five minutes by the opening pastiche. Brilliant scientist (James Cromwell) creates a robot, called a 'surrogate', for paraplegics to use in custom life. Soon the expertise advances so almost every person in the world can have their own surrogate at diminutive cost. The result is a world where humans are safely plugged in at home, while the surrogate is out and about. Misdeed is eradicated and culture settles into a quasi-utopia. But not each one buys into surrogacy, a small band of humans (Dreads), live outside the surrogate world in specific zones. Led by The Prophet (Ving Rhames), they fear surrogates and see them as the downfall of humanity.

Surrogates has a few twists, so I'll keep this review completely spoiler free. The big accomplishment here is the philosophy. In a world where Facebook, MySpace, and SecondLife is leading us like rats into a automatic existence, the surrogate theme is absolutely believable and well executed. Fat people are thin in surrogacy. Ugly people are appealing; men can be women, and so on. The world of surrogates is a wholly fake one, where anonymity reigns and the villain can be one person, or many. So Mostow's vision is realized and visually effective.

Given the current nature of the story and the many qualities it shares with the best works of tentative science fiction, one has to be unsure why the movie trades so heavily in standard conspiracy thriller motifs. One character describes surrogacy as a disease, but the filmmakers never consider the broader ramifications of such an giant affliction. Questions of identity manipulations, of the larger implications of such a deep-seated evolutionary step and the ways the most basic traits of humankind have been fundamentally altered by it go unexplored. Besides the reduction in crime and the prevalence of the prettified mannequin surrogates encrusted in globs of shiny makeup, the society they inhabit functions as minute more than a standard approximation of our own.

In the not-too-distant future, everyone has a robotic avatar that he sends out into the world, scheming it with his brainwaves from the protection of his own home. The foundation for this sci-fi actioner makes logic for about four seconds, after which you begin to wonder why everyone on the planet would willingly become a shut-in, how the poor are imaginary to shell out for these high-tech androids, etc. But it's great news for Bruce Willis (as a detective investigating the first murder in years), Radha Mitchell (as his partner), and Rosamund Pike (as his wife), whose faces get digitally polished to a gleaming softness. Jonathan Mostow, who did the third Terminator movie, directed a pro forma lettering by Michael Ferris and John D. Brancato, who wrote the third and fourth.