Film Review: Surrogates

Posted by: – Sep 25, 2009

Surrogates may not be the most original premise. The idea of humans becoming too dependent on technology has been tackled countless times before. The presence of robots that some people support and others oppose may conjure memories of I, Robot from 2004, especially thanks to James Cromwell playing the ill-fated inventor of the robotic technology, nearly the identical role as he did in the older film. Despite this overall lack of originality, the story told here is still provoking and well-told.

The film is set in the near future. We see the development of technology that allows humans to control machines with their minds. Though it was developed to help the elderly and the handicapped, as the technology eventually achieves fully immersive robotic avatar control, corporations realize the appeal riskless living would have for the young and healthy, as well. Eventually, nearly everyone in the world lives their lives through the titular robots, and the human race never has to worry about injury or death. This all changes when a young man is murdered. It is the first murder in several years since surrogates became the standard of living, and to make matters worse, someone managed to kill him through his own surrogate. Such an attack is supposed to be impossible because of failsafe systems built into the surrogates to keep operators safe. In the face of the new development, Bruce Willis, as FBI Agent Greer, is brought onto the case.

Greer has plenty of leads to follow. There is an underground group of people who oppose the use of surrogates. They call themselves Dreads and they have surrogate free reservations set up in every major city. It would not be too difficult to imagine that a weapon that could destroy surrogates and their operators would be high on their wish list, but how would people who live technology free lives develop such a thing. It is not enough that Greer would have to figure out this mystery from the comfort of his surrogate. Thanks to damage he receives during a chase with a suspect, he has to take his own flesh and blood body out to solve the case for the first time in years. Greer’s investigation takes him from Dread reservations, to corporate offices, and even through the Department of Defense, but through multiple false leads, the filmmakers smartly save the real revelations for the last few minutes making for an enjoyable mystery.

Enjoyable though it may be, the mystery is not the central point of the film. The real value of the film is in witnessing Greer’s attempts to readjust to real life without the robot life preserver. We learn that he had a son who was killed in a car accident, and we assume that it was this event that drove Greer and his wife to the use of surrogates in the first place. As Greer grapples with taking back his actual life, he also tries to break his wife free of an apparent addiction to surrogate use. The character is the most interesting aspect of this film, the murder mystery just gives him something to do.

Surrogates has the unfortunate fate of sharing similar themes and plot points as many other movies before it. It would be easy to dismiss it for that reason. We have all seen technology run amuck in movies before. Humanity becomes too dependent and we need a traumatic event to return us to our natural roots. There are so many films like this, though, that I believe we should stop looking at them as sci-fi films that are too similar and start to see them as their own genre. If we can all make that leap, I believe we can appreciate Surrogates as a superior entry in that genre.

By Gareth Mussen