Surrogates – Technology versus mankind… Again
This is a movie that tells us the story of a mankind, ruined by a strange addiction – technology. Or is it that strange nowadays, when everyone has a computer or at least a cell phone with the same capabilities? Not that much, is it? In the beginning of the movie we are faced with the thrilling murder of a young child, coming from a rich family. However, it comes out that the boy wasn’t exactly killed – he was not directly, but through the machine he was patronizing. His Surrogate. These machines are owned by almost everyone and are like a creepy, motionless, smoothed younger version of the Patron, item that stays unchanged while the human ages. They can even look nothing like the person who controls them! They are operated from distance (a huge one), by neurons. Yes – you put the electrodes over your head and your electric waves and particles transfer your thoughts into actions, performed by the machinery. They work, make love, argue, but never get hurt. They are an invincible cloning of your younger self. That is why this murder caused a great deal of shock to the forces. After the occurrence of this event we go on a very long journey through the strange world of electronic people and their habits, the army and on a search of the mysterious weapon which can kill the Patrons through their Surrogates. After all, it can be used as a military weapon and who would want this?Some time after the appearance of the life-sized techno puppets, like in every science fiction story, some start to believe that these creations are taking over the world and humans are no longer living. So there is also the opposition. Opposition, which later becomes supported by none other but the creator of the Surrogates himself, in search of revenge. So we also have a confrontation and who will take care of that better than FBI? Our main characters – Peters (Radha Mitchell) and Tom Greer (Bruce Willis) are in charge of the investigation of the murder case. But even they have problems deciding which side they are on for a bit too long in the movie.Action is lacking, except for very few moments through the nearly 90 minutes of movie. As a lover of the twists in stories, I must say that I still cannot ignore the fact that I knew what was going to happen for at least 60 minutes. It made me wonder if there was a twist at all, but there was. It just wasn’t near the ending.
Surrogates is one of the newest science fiction movies around. It has action, love story, drama and mystery in the plot, but does it work? I must say that many admirers of this type of movies are more than happy this one came out. However, in my opinion, it didn’t work. To be honest, the actors were pretty good in expressing nothing and moving not an inch of their faces while talking (If that is a good thing for actors). Maybe at the audition they were so bad in expressing feelings that because of this “ability” they were chosen for the cast? Who knows? Who will tell?
Grade D
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