3 out of 5

Director: Jonathan Mostow

Surrogates is a high-concept sci-fi film (is all sci-fi technically high-concept?) that extrapolates a potential direction of technology to present a world where we all interact through robotic bodies, or surrogates. The appeal of using your surry is that you can make it look however you want – young, old, change the gender, become muscular or skinny – and also do whatever you want – get shot, do drugs, have wild intercourse, etc. Crime rates drop, but alas we must wonder… are we really living? And everyman Bruce Willis is asking this same question as he gets involved with a dastardly plot seemingly cooked up by the surrogate-rejecting Dread human movement that focuses on a weapon capable of killing surrogate users via their robot bodies. High-concept, yeah? And rife with potential commentary goodies. Which the movie delivers with enough panache, as it does impressive action pastiches and some well written and acted dramatic moments with Bruce and his in-movie wife. Whats strange about the movie is that it never… draws you in, somehow. From scene to scene, interesting things are going on, and youre watching – not bored, but not exactly entertained, either. Theres no thought involved is seemingly one problem – its not all spelled out, and theres that twisty whodunnit aspect, but you could put it on mute and guess whats happening. So theres this incredible imbalance between everything looking and sounding right, but not really effecting you. Though perhaps thats some kind of uber commentary. Quality, average sci-fi, worth at least one watch.