Surrogates

Thankfully, from now onto the end of the year, there are good big-budget Hindi movies bunched up for release on every weekend. Hollywood hasn’t been scrimping on the big budget movies exactly, but they have been really disappointing so far. But if the last 2-3 weeks are any indication, we can look forward to getting some “good” Hollywood movies as well. In the last 3 weeks, I have seen Away We Go, Orphan, Up, Inglourious Basterds, The Time Traveler’s Wife and Surrogates. And all of them have been great movies !! And even after watching so many movies, I missed some pretty good ones like Vicky Christina Barcelona, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, My Sister’s Keeper, Taking Woodstock and The Duchess.

Unfortunately, some work pressure and a little ill-timed fever has meant that I couldn’t write reviews for all of them. I will try to clear the backlog as much as I can.
I chose Surrogates now because this movie impacted me more than the others – in a similar way that District 9 did – in that it made science fiction plausible. The scenario painted in the movie 15 years from now feels rather believable and that’s what made me like this movie a lot to begin with.

The Plot
Scientists make a breakthrough in prosthetics – they manage to tap into brain signals to control movements of artificial limbs for the disabled. Soon, its possible to control a full humanoid robot with your brain and people start to use their surrogates – as these robots are called – to go about their daily lives while they remain at home. It results in significant cut down in crime and there hasn’t been a single murder in years - till now, when someone murders two surrogates. FBI agent Greer (Bruce Willis) has to venture into the real world for the first time in years and finds out that there is much more than what meets the eye

The Good
The realism of the scenario of people using surrogates is the one which makes this movie a great watch. If you think about it, it just makes a lot of sense to let a robot do all your activities while you physically lie on a couch with a visor on your eyes. And you can make your surrogate resemble yourself, yet have the muscular physique or a size zero figure (as your inclination might be). Ofcourse, you can also avoid the stench of sweat in public transport, communicable diseases, muggings and all other unpleasant things. And as can be expected – there are small groups of dissenters who abhor the idea of using surrogates. They are confined to ‘reservations’ in all the major cities, which resemble the ghettos you might see today.

The story itself is a good whodunit for the first part but the identity of the villain is a let down. But the twist regarding The Prophet is awesome though. With such an interesting premise, it would seem the makers didn’t think the entire story through with the same intensity. They could have made the story delve more into the effects of living your life like a video game – because even if your surrogate is destroyed, it doesn’t harm you at all and you can just buy one off the shelf and continue your life.

Ofcourse, there is Bruce Willis – when he is there, you expect some action - and he kicks ass as usual. But this is not a full-on-action Bruce Willis regular. There are just two chase sequences and the first one is rather enjoyable.

The Bad
Greer’s relationship with his wife is supposed to be a sideplot which tries to portray the complications arising out of dependence on surrogates. But it fails miserably and the makers never quite explain why he cant just walk into her room and yank her visor off !!

But most importantly, right at the very end, after the villain has been unmasked and everything is saved, the makers take a very childish stand in dealing with the surrogates phenomena. After such a though provoking premise and first half, the ending was just too banal. You know this could have been such a great movie if someone rewrote the last 20 min of the movie. And its for that Surrogates gets just a 3 star.