Surrogates - 012610

Bruce Willis plays a cop(again) named Tom Greer living in a future society that is basically Matrix-light. Most of the population sits in chairs plugged into machines but they're given robots that they control and live life through. On the surface, as usual, the world seems utopian, but it has it's problems. People live through their robots and thus don't actually live their lives. Two surrogate robots are attacked one night and destroyed but this time, their operators are killed at the same time. This puts Bruce Willis on the first murder case in years which leads to a web of political intrigue. And it gets harder when Tom's surrogate is destroyed, forcing him to continue the case as a destructible human.

The movie has a new premise in that it borrows ideas from other sources, Matrix, I-Robot etc., and pops out their illegitimate child. I'm usually not one to be capable of figuring out the deeper meaning of films but this one made it blatantly obvious by basically telling you. The whole thing is about drug addiction. People live through only their robots because not doing so is hard and doing so is easy. You can't get hurt, nothing is real, and there are no consequences when you're living as a surrogate. Tom's wife even insists on only using her surrogate because she doesn't have to deal with the pain of losing their son.

The movie's main problem is depth. It's strictly a surface movie and not very good at being that. Even the deeper meaning of drug addiction is brought right to the surface. The action sequences are okay but nothing special. Most of the movie is very predictable and you can guess what'll happen from the beginning. The kill everyone diabolical plot at the end is very old school Bondish and that's something you really shouldn't try and emulate unless you go all out with being campy. The ending sequence is kind of cool to see and you find yourself trying to imagine a better movie going with it.

Final grade is a solid C. You won't regret watching it but you'll be fine with never seeing it again.