Surrogates

Ugh, it's times like this that I kinda hate my job. That job I'm referring to is of course that of a volunteer movie critic, which I've had officially since around January, and unofficially for as long as I remember (just ask anyone who's seen a movie with me about the rant I go on standing outside the theater). Since I've only been writing reviews since January, I haven't had to experience the post-summer September lull before. I was fully aware that movies in September are usually stinkers, but having to review movies that are the epitome of boring and average is really tough. Those two words perfectly describe Surrogates, but I'll do my best to describe why without turning my review into a boring, average mess.

Without Bruce Willis, Surrogates is a straight to DVD movie. With Bruce Willis, it's a straight to DVD quality movie that also features Willis wearing a bad hairpiece. The concept of the movie is interesting enough: people live vicariously through robots so they can be who they always wanted to be. When someone starts killing surrogates with some crazy new weapon that also kills the person operating the robot, shit gets real and they call in Willis, who is wearing what appears to be 5 layers of CG. That washed over, fake look might work, given that this is robo-Willis, but his partner is also a robot and she looks normal. It's not till later that you relize the look is given to Willis and some of the other surrogates because the actors playing them are older. If the actor is of the right age, they just act like a robot, which in this movie, pretty much entails not smiling. The consistency amongst how surrogates look and act is abysmal. Some show no emotion, others show tons of emotion. Some look plastic, others look normal. At first, I chalked the wooden acting up to them being robots, but then even the real people showed no emotion. I'm sure there's some jerk out there who will try to rationalize this but it's just lazy filmmaking.

I referred to this as straight to DVD quality earlier and that's mainly because of the script. While I've never read the graphic novel upon which this movie is based, I'm sure that all they took from it was the general concepts and the title, which are solid. Where Surrogates struggles is when it tries to make these great social commentaries about being alive or what it means to be human. The dialogue is so scripted and on the nose that whatever is trying to be said is undermined by stupidity. One has to look no further than Moon to see a movie that deals with weighty issues and does so in a subtle way, relying on character development and tones rather than lines of dialogue that tell the audience exactly what they should be thinking.

Luckily for me, right after seeing this I saw Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and loved it, so I didn't have to think very long about surrogates. Sadly, I had to write this review (I put it off as long as possible) and relive my experience, but you can just go see Cloudy not have to deal with the very pedestrian Surrogates that can be described in one word: meh.