ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

This movie didn't do well, and I really don't know why. Wikipedia says the critics said things like this.[

"Though it sports a slick look and feel, Surrogates fails to capitalize on a promising premise, relying instead on mindless action and a poor script."

I couldn't agree less. The premise is intriguing, the action is exciting, the performers really perform, and the way the story presents the concept is downright creepy.

I mean, the whole idea of aging, overweight, unwashed people lying in darkened rooms while gizmos relay signals back and forth between their brains and the robot bodies they control remotely is both brilliant and disturbing.

The movie also does a great job of making Bruce Willis capable of playing his aging actual self as well as his youthful artificial body. Ditto for his wife, Rosamund Pike, who's gorgeous when she's a robot, but not so hot when she comes out of her dark bedroom and into the real world.

We get a good murder mystery with this one, too, and it was done in a nice hi-tech manner.

All in all, one hell of a good science fiction movie.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

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The trailer for this movie is a cut above the usual mindless barrage of images that gives the viewer no idea at all what the story is about.

This trailer not only presents the splendid special effects and the exciting action, it actually explains the premise in a clear and interesting manner.

This is a terrific movie.

Some folks complain that it significantly altered the premise from what the graphic novel presented. Well, maybe it did — but what it substituted was a rip-roaring good yarn that ought to judged based on what it IS, not what it ISN'T.



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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[The Spike]

Surrogacy is a perversion. It's an addiction. And you have to kill the addict to kill the addiction.

I first viewed Surrogates upon its home format release and positively found it very ordinary. Viewing it again, with focus and in solitude, it proved to be a far better experience.

The action scenes are what you would expect for a multi-plex appeasing popcorner, loud, colourful and owing great debt to modern technology. Yet to dismiss this totally as one of those easy money making blockbuster movies is most unfair.

Surrogates oozes intrigue, even if it doesn't quite deliver on the smartness written on the page. The idea that in the future robotic alter egos can carry out our everyday mundane functions is cracker-jack, and it opens up a whole can of berserker worms.

This is not merely an excuse to have Bruce Willis running around exploding surrogate robots, as much fun as that is of course, there's a deeper emotional core pulsing away as Willis fights the good fight to make sure being human is not cast aside like a thing of the past, that as flawed as we are, hiding away in a surrogate is not the answer.

This axis of the story is beautifully realised by the plot strand involving Willis and Rosamund Pike as his wife, with both actors doing fine work to give it the required emotional heft. It may ultimately lose itself to a standard conspiracy plot, but there's intelligence within to make Surrogates a better film than it first appears. 7/10
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The quality of mercy is not strnen.

[Krel.]

There is an old short story, where people use remote robot bodies, copied after famous people, Spencer Tracy, Clark Gable. They use different bodies for different occasions, an everyday body, a sports body, a formal body and such.

It's been years since I've read the story, but I believe the character was a boxer that had to abandon his remote bodies for some reason.

David.

[Bud Brewster]

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That's a wild idea! In this movie, people just had one body that was attractive, despite the person's actual age and appearance.

The version you described is the natural extension of the premise, and it makes sense that people would do that.

And if somebody told you to "go screw yourself", you could actually do it!
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)