Surrogates

Editorial

Bruce Willis hasn’t taken the lead in a sci-fi flick since the big, dumb Armageddon (1998) and the vilified and occasionally deified The Fifth Element (1997). Beyond providing an excuse to sometimes wear a creepy wig which Barbie’s boyfriend must want back, why Willis picked the shiny, empty Surrogates as his sci-fi return isn’t clear from the tepid results on screen.

Far from being as good as the many dystopian visions which it weakly echoes (Blade Runner to The Matrix), Surrogates shoots itself in the foot by being based on a flawed idea with more holes than a flyscreen. Screenwriters Michael Ferris and John D. Brancato are on to something when they suggest our tech-obsessed world flirts with rendering human contact obsolete. Sci-fi has always loved being allegorical but Surrogates’ portrait of modern people living their lives through cyborgs - which they remotely control from the safety of special chairs - opens the door to problems it cannot overcome.

As FBI guy Thomas Greer (comatose Willis) and his partner Jennifer Peters (underused Radha Mitchell) investigate the first human murder in years, Surrogates’ internal logic collapses. If you can believe virtual reality has made crime virtually non-existent, how about accepting that people still work in everyday jobs even though their surrogate allegedly lets them “live the dream”?

The Surrogates world is built on such shaky ground, and doesn’t hold up under light scrutiny. To stop us from thinking about what’s going on, Terminator 3 director Jonathan Mostow should have broken out more action, gadgets or intrigue. He doesn’t, so we’re left to plod along on a thrill-less race to thwart a reasonable conspiracy, punctuated by banal baggage and ineffectual Ving Rhames as a rasta Prophet who has to show his nails to the audience whenever he talks. Annoying.

When the moment comes for Willis and Mitchell to possibly save humanity, their rescue plan rivals Independence Day for tech tosh. Surrogates does have something going for at this late stage, though; scenes reminiscent of The Happening emerge – and Surrogates is far less aggravating and pretentious than M. Nigh Shyamalan’s eco-stinker.

Zach Gibson