JEPSTER TOGLE

Would you live your life in a world where everyone isn’t real?

Much like the Matrix films, Surrogates has that philosophical theme of whether people can be satisfied with what’s not real for the comfort of their own satisfaction. As Matrix was all about a virtual world created by Artificial Intelligence, Surrogates’ environment centers more on android robots that can replicate and even enhance anything a human being can do. All the people have to do is plug-in to their device and they are connected to their “Surrogate”, the android robot, which they can control and actually go around the world in and also look like whatever they want it to look like. Life then becomes easier because feeling rejected or being in danger is now just an after thought.

That is until someone dies while being attacked as a Surrogate.

The whole story evolves around Greer (Bruce Willis), a police detective who was assigned to the case of the murder connected to the Surrogate. A lot of twist and turns along with some silly hairdo make this film a nice watch but all too plain compared to other films of the same genre that came out this year. The problem with the story is that it somehow rather confuses the audience because of connecting too many people to the murders. As much as the life of Greer and his wife seems interesting, it just seems like  a small addition rather than actually being a big part of the story.

The Surrogates film has an identity crisis. It tries to be as philosophical as possible but also wants to be a blockbuster action film as well. All in all, it ends up being both but actually doesn’t live up to the Philosophical themes it started out with even if it ended on a more philosophical note. I don’t want to spoil the action scenes but all I can say is, Michael Bay seems to be having a lot of followers lately.

Compared to the graphic novel that this film was based on, I could say that the graphic novel is more focused than the film. Also, the film changed around 60% of the plot of the graphic novel so that it could have that blockbuster feel that everyone could relate too. To be honest, the graphic novel was a bit too complicated since it was a purely sci-fi story. The dialogue was tech-heavy and the themes although philosophical, ended up pretty underwhelming.

Greer’s character played by Bruce Willis also seemed to have a crisis on his own. Initially, he seemed pretty well statured and confident. Then suddenly he gets all grumpy and starts acting like a bad-ass. Next thing we know, he’s acting all sentimental and starts becoming a bleeding heart. I have to applaud Bruce Willis for acting different characteristics for one person, but I don’t think that was his intention.

As for casting, there were a lot of miscasts, most especially Ving Rhames as a” prophet”. Beneath all those dreadlocks and that thick beard, I could still feel that big dude beneath those clothes. Willis was well cast but looked very different from the graphic novel character. The rest were well cast and you could truly feel that sense of “perfection” within the community.

All in all, it’s still a watchable film. You could still appreciate the action scenes and the composition of the scenes even if the acting and the story felt underwhelming. Cinematography which is good at best was tolerable but there wasn’t enough spectacular shots to leave you in that sense of awe that you’d look for in an action film mixed with philosophical themes. The film deserves a rating of 3 out of 5.

Rating:

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