Release Date – 9/25/09
In the future, humans live in isolation. Most of them never leave their homes and instead live life through a surrogate. They attach themselves to a stem chair and can control a robot just like it’s them. Crime rate is at a record low and quality of life is up. These people can purchase surrogates that look anyway they would like so the average looking person can look like a supermodel if they choose to. But someone has discovered how to kill a human by killing their surrogate, something that before was thought to be impossible. Tom Greer is the cop assigned to the case, and what he unravels is a vast conspiracy. This move had a cool premise. I’ve always liked futuristic movies and this one did not disappoint. Although the plot holes are there, its still an interesting and fun ride.
Bruce Willis plays Detective Tom Greer. Greer had a family tragedy before the time of surrogates and has since never left his house without one. He hasn’t even seen his own wife (Rosamund Pike) in the flesh in a long time because she locks herself in her room. She is afraid of the outside world and can only live by using her surrogate. Greer finds out about a weapon that is frying robots and in turn melting the brains of the humans attached to them. This leads him and his partner (Radha Mitchell) on a chase through the company that makes surrogates, the compound of humans against the robots, and the rest of the population who are obsessed with living their lives through stem chairs. When his surrogate is destroyed he’s forced to go out in the world in the flesh for the first time in years in order to continue his investigation. Bruce Willis may not be as badass as his John McClain character in Die Hard but he’s still a hero cop that just wants to set things right. Other starring roles are James Cromwell as the creator of surrogates and Ving Rhames as the bearded, dreadlocked Prophet of the humans.
The story was cool and I really liked how they worked the robots into the story. All they did was create perfect versions of these people. Willis is bald with a beard and getting a little older as his human self but as a surrogate he’s got a full head of hair, clean shaven, in great shape, and looking young. It’s every person’s dream but you can see how people who get obsessed. There’s even some creepy scenes showing big fat guys controlling women and going out to clubs hooking up with guys. Its basically like the anonymity of chat rooms on the Internet but more realistic. It’s a creepy premise but it would definitely happen in real life. Of course the movie deals with conspiracy and twists and turns. None of them are anything to rant and rave about. The movie eventually just goes through the motions of your average action-thriller. It even gets a little Terminator feel to it towards the end which is weird because director Jonathan Mostow’s previous claim to fame was directing Terminator 3. Overall though, I enjoyed this different take on future robots.
IMDB – 7/10
Rotten Tomatoes – 37%
Movie Wiseguys – 7/10