Surrogates

Bruce Willis returns to the sci-fi genre with this film about people hooking themselves up to robots who do all their living for them.
It was the day after I saw this film that I saw another sci-fi movie ‘Moon’ and realised that big studios should not be making sci-fi movies with a theme. This is one of those films that at its core is an interesting issue but is not explored in an interesting way. As is the case with most of these films they are more concerned about style over substance. I expect it is because they think people coming to a Bruce Willis movie want action and nothing too thought provoking. It is always a worry when films like this have such a short running time. They feel like they have been edited down so much from the test screenings. In saying that though I found the premise a little hard to believe. I cannot really imagine that if given the chance a large majority of the population would rather have a robot go around acting like them. Yes there is the thrill of being able to do things you can’t do as a real person but the film implies people are hooked-up to the machines all the time and that I can’t really believe. There is also the issue of what happens to people while hook-up to the robots. In other films and TV shows where this has happened people’s bodies have become affected by lack of use and so the muscles atrophy and stuff. But here that doesn’t seem to happen. I will say though that Jonathan Mostow can direct action sequences really well and the ones in this film are excellently handled.
This may seem odd but Bruce Willis is an actor I have a great deal of respect for. While he does not always do great film, I admire the diversity of film that he does. He can do low and big budget and in a variety of genres. Here he is doing another one of his pay the bill films (not that he would need to). I tend to think he does mediocre films like this just to keep his face out there. He does not bring anything special to the film. The only other actor who I liked was Aussie Radha Mitchell. She looked so different in as her surrogate robot. I think she gave an excellent performance. It was also nice to see Bruce reunited with his Gimp partner from ‘Pulp Fiction’.
This is a very mediocre sci-fi film that feels like it has had all the interest taken out of it by the studio system. Check out my next review for a sci-fi film well worth seeing.