Surrogates is blandy mcbland-bland milquetoast sci-fi action which fails to capitalize on easy plot points and treats the audience like drooling idiots. Jonathan Mostow is the maker of this mediocre movie, leaving behind the noir sensibilities of the comics for Law and Order meets CSI procedural boredom and primary color palette. It’s a pain to say it, but sometimes it’s better for a movie to be outright terrible, because at least then it’s memorable. Could this be the beginning of the end for indie graphic novel movies? Whiteout sucked hard at the box office, and this movie is almost sure to disappoint. The great Hollywood gold rush that started with Road to Perdition (where the studio opted to advertise “based on the novel” rather than “graphic novel”) is now coming to an end as every available license is sucked up in a rush to make cheap fare and the studios forget the lessons of Tank Girl.
Surrogates proudly advertises its graphic novel origins, then proceeds to sex up the proceedings, trading in overweight male cops for svelte FBI agents Tom Greer (Bruce Willis in Jackal toupee glory) and partner Peters (Radha Mitchell). Despite the change to a coed team-up, there is no kind of romantic tension. Maybe that’s because when you walk around in a robot, it’s just harder to get aroused. We are never told if you can have robo-sex, or even get a robo-hard on. For all we know, these “surrogates” are as flat as a Ken doll crotch under the clothing. The montage that opens the film uses stock footage to introduce the social scene: it’s 2017, everyone uses robots to go about their daily lives, the lone resisters have set up communes in major cities, blah, blah, blah. The news footage is based on real technology, including paraplegics using thoughts to operate computers, monkeys moving arms by brain waves, and Army exoskeletons. This is all real, happening right now, and the movie has its opening in the can.
The story is pretty obvious, and you’ll see it coming a mile off. The story is definitely not very original or tense, but does offer a few moments that might have been better with a different director. Ving Rhames plays The Prophet, leader of the Dreads, the surrogate-free community. Ving Rhames is damn awesome, and the only entertaining thing here. When Rhames starts spouting off pseudo-spiritual anti-technology rhetoric, it’s a real treat. It’s a damn shame the first re-pairing of Rhames and Willis since Pulp Fiction had to suck so bad, but at least Rhames is shining as bright as ever, while Willis is hitting old man territory terribly fast. When Willis visits the commune and gets a view of human interaction, it’s almost a philosophical moment, but Mostow can’t even fake up some arty framing. The movie treats the audience terribly by running a newscast about The Prophet rabble-rousing a rebellion. The text under the picture of The Prophet during the newscast says, in English, “new threat message.” The English font is made to look like Farsi script, a pathetic attempt to link the character to modern-day Islamic terrorists. What a cheap shot, and they didn’t even think the audience would notice.
Much worse is the leftovers Mostow serves up from his last movie, Terminator 3. These effects are so similar as to be embarrassing, from the endoskeleton glowing gold under the skin, up to the T-800 knock-off robos that populate the world. At the FBI wiretapping center, torso-only surrogates observe a splash of flat-screen monitors, even though the video could be channeled straight to the observers. These are all unused Skynet sets.
Another thing that might surprise you is that, though we will all use advanced robots to go about our daily lives, we will all drive cheap mid-90s cars. This obvious budget saving in a move is understandable but stupid, since a robot driving a ’95 Ford Explorer or Buick Century makes no sense. They should have either souped up the cars with some body kits, or just not included the scene. The best ideas, which explore a warehouse of linked-up troops in armchairs controlling identical robo soldiers, in training and peace-keeping missions, are only glanced at.
This movie sucks. Even Bruce Willis can’t carry this schlock around, though we all know he’s done it before (Mercury Rising, Hart’s War anyone?). Ving Rhames is great, but isn’t given enough screen time to make any difference. Mostow is making a sci-fi movie on the cheap, and hoping that no one will pay attention.
