Definition of the word “Surrogate:” Noun – a person appointed to act for another; a substitute.
In the near future human kind has replaced themselves with robotic entities known as Surrogates. The Surrogates were created 14-years earlier by a Dr. Canter (James Cromwell) as a way to help paraplegics gain the ability to move and walk again. A few years later the military started to use the technology as exo-skeletons for the troops sent into combat. These exo-skeletons were used to help enhance the troops mobility and duration during combat. Eventually it was determined that mankind didn’t need to be on the battle field at all and Surrogates were created and deployed into battle while the host was safe and sound at a command base sitting in a “command chair” controlling what the Surrogate did and said during battle. Like most military ideas and inventions, eventually this made its way into the public and normal people were able to have their own surrogate. Now everyday people could create a surrogate that looked how they wanted to look, do things without risk of death, and be someone that in real life they were not able to be. With the advance of the surrogates came the decline of human kind. Pockets of resistance groups started to form and build cities outside of the surrogate cities. These were deemed Human Only locations and no machines were allowed. Man and Machine are not able to live together in harmony and eventually one shall stand while one shall fall.
Bruce Willis stars as FBI Agent Tom Greer. In the human world, Greer is in his 50′s, bald, and aging. As a Surrogate he is agile, young, able to do his job with no limitations. We first meet Tom and his partner Agent Peters (Radha Mitchell) when they are called to the scene of the first Homicide in Boston in at least 14 years. Two Surrogates were murdered outside of a club, their eyes and memory cards were melted but the odd thing is that the host was also killed. Whoever did this has a way of killing the man and the machine and Agent Greer will do everything it takes to find the killer. As the previews show, Greer’s surrogate gets destroyed causing Greer to continue the case as a human. At first it is odd for Greer to walk, breath, and interact outside of his apartment with the new world as mankind doesn’t leave their homes anymore – not when a Surrogate can do everything for them. Greer comes to terms with his new situation and continues the search for the killer.
Making matters worse for the Surrogate society is the Human society that is being lead by a man known as the Profit (Ving Rhames). The Profit has declared that the Human society will rise again and that the eventual downfall of the Surrogates will be the best thing for the world. He has also declared that if any Surrogate enters any of the Human cities, a war will be started with deadly results. Greer knows that his best chance at solving the Homicide is to find the man responsible as well as the weapon used before this war starts.
Going into the movie I thought that Surrogates looked like a combination of I-Robot meets Blade Runner meets The Matrix. After seeing the movie I’d say that the plot is a modern day telling of Aldous Huxley’s classic novel Brave New World. A story about a man stepping into the new society and trying to understand why things are the way they are and wondering is there a way to stop the changes and reset the world back to before the “new way” become the “only way.” I was also a little weary about the movie based on the published run time of 88-minutes. I’m glad to say that sometimes a short movie is the best kind of movie as the story moves at a quick enough pace to keep the interest of the audience. There are a few twists in the plot that really shocked me as they changed what I thought the outcome of the movie would be for a few of the characters. And that’s a good thing because we are first shown that you can’t always believe everything that you see and this is a major moving point of the movie.
The action sequences in the movie were very bland and cookie cutter. Don’t go into Surrogates expecting the budget of a summer blockbuster and getting tons of explosions and car chases. What you get is a futuristic detective movie that focuses more on the characters and less on the action. There is one major action piece that takes place about half way through the film. After that, it is back to the grindstone of the detective movie and the hunt for the killer and weapon.
Surrogates is rated PG-13, has a short run time of 88-minutes, and is directed by Jonathan Mostow.
Rating: 
