Surrogates
Starring: Bruce Willis, Radha Mitchell, Rosamund Pike, James Cromwell
Details: US/88mins (12A)
He's a trooper that Bruce Willis; now well into the mid-century, he's still knocking out the action roles, even if he does need a rub down after every car chase. It's a good thing, so, that there are very few action sequences in Surrogates; a film that hovers over a similar, quasi sci-fi/noir ground as Will Smith vehicle, I Robot. Despite having a somewhat stellar source as cult graphic novel, the story here feels inherently slight, due to some pedestrian handling from director Mostow, a script that feels too middle-of-the-road to have anything relevant to say, and a rating that pretty much forbids it from entertaining anyone past their mid-teens. What's the point having an action film with no real action?
Story sees Bruce Willis' FBI Agent investigating the murder of two surrogates, in an incident that also managed to kill their owners. A surrogate is a robotic, ideological version of its human counterpart; a user can venture out into society, doing whatever they want, without the risk of anything at all bad happening to them. That is until the aforementioned drones are killed, and whoever was plugged into them from home. Willis' G-Man smells a rat that involves the hierarchy of the company that invented the now global use of the robots, and sets about investigating it, old school.
Surrogates is a nothing film. It doesn't have anything to say, its direction is very much of the Brett Ratner, "point and shoot" variety, and Willis looks completely bored for every minute of its mercifully short runnning time. You can tell it desperately wants to be sexy, and the story itself is a great hook with a lot of possible avenues to go down - it just never chooses a direction and suffers drastically as a result. The whole production is just lacking in something that would see it find a definable audience, as the shiny looking cast and slick trailers will only pull in so many. Those that do go will find themselves mildly distracted, but never really entertained.
Willis really needs to choose his roles with a lot more care, or if he thinks he does that already, fire his agent. This is very much a bland blockbuster from the director of Terminator 3. Revisit your Die Hard box set instead.
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Your Reviews
Dissapointing Willis - Paul
Surrogates with Bruce Willis in it at a glance looks brilliant and the story line catches you imagination, but the film overall is very poor, it reminded me of I-Robot, with a bit more of a twist.... MORE
Review Published 09 February 2010
Star Rating: 
A decent film, but not enough action - declanh
Surrogates introduces the future in an opening sequence that hints at some of the main characters that we are to deal with - though not in a way that is very clear. A young man dies in New York, but... MORE
Review Published 08 February 2010
Star Rating:
Quite a decent film- but could have been much more - Sheilm
There are certain roles that James Cromwell excels in - and given his senatorial appearance, it may be the case that he is destined to play more roles like this one - where he is a man you would... MORE
Review Published 31 January 2010
Star Rating:
A good watch. Worth renting - Shane
This movie wasn't as good as it appeared to be. A good story taking off from iRobot etc... There seemed to be something missing however, maybe it was the script but it could have been so much better.... MORE
Review Published 10 January 2010
Star Rating:
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