SURROGATES (2009)

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"Surrogates Review"

Back to the future, again. Surrogates is a Sci-Fi adventure film starring Bruce Willis. The film is based on a comic series and directed by Jonathan Mostow (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machine).

The film is set in the year 2017, eight years from now where people live their life through the use of robot machines called "Surrogates". This allows people to live in a fear-free world, where you are not to be harmed by any means. Any harm done to a surrogate does not affect its human controller.

When a man named Jarod is found murdered, it is revealed that he is also a user of surrogates and the son of Lionel Canter, the inventor of surrogates. The case grows when several other surrogates are found dead, causing Detective Harvey Greer to find the killer without the use of his surrogate. It marks the first time Greer will leave his home since the invention.

Director Jonathan Mostow certainly exceeds with the direction of the film. Mostow, who also served as a producer for Hancock, allows audiences to generally understand this future. He shows that surrogates are another great advancement in technology but once again causes trouble. Bruce Willis gives a great performance somewhat like Will Smith's in "I, Robot".

Willis is given the ability to actually act, unlike his roles in "Sin City" and "Grindhouse". Fortunately for the audience he doesn't slack. I never read the comics so I can't determine how it may have felt for that group. Boris Kodjoe (Showtime's Soul Food; Madea's Family Reunion) and Ving Rhames. Actor James Cromwell, who played the murdered inventor in "I, Robot", in my opinion isn't seen enough to even give him a supporting actor title.

Though I enjoyed the film it follows the many cliches that all 'one man against the world' do. The protagonist usually find himself in the position to save the world. other films that do that are I Robot, Terminator Salvation, I Am Legend. So Surrogates hasn't really given us anything new. I do love it's 'man vs. technology' concept usually found in Ray Bradbury novels.

It has to be one of the best comic films I have seen that doesn't belong to either Marvel or DC Comics. The end of the film leaves you to wonder whether a sequel is in its future.