Surrogates

Welcome to another episode of The "D" List.

Today's review is Surrogates. Directed by Jonathan Mostow. Written by Michael Ferris &
John D. Brancato based on the graphic novel written by Robert Venditti & Brett Weldele.

When the trailer for I, Robot II came out......OOPS sorry I meant Surrogates. I immediately thought "This looks OK." Then several more trailers came out combined with TV spots and my interest began to wean. I decided to give it a shot I mean how bad could I, Robot II be. Damn! I apologize once again. I mean Surrogates.

I hope everyone caught the joke here.

Anyway, let's begin with the review. Our story takes us into the not so distant future where a visionary scientist Dr. Canter played by James Cromwell creates a technology where humans can live their lives through robotic duplicates (or sometimes not duplicates) known as surrogates. They transmit their conscience into the robot and there you have it. As a result of this phenomenon, crime and disease are practically non existent until......

A surrogate is destroyed.

This normally wouldn't make much news because the fail safe if a surrogate is destroyed is the user is automatically cut off so they are not affected by what happens to their robotic double. This time that doesn't happen. Both the surrogate and it's user are killed setting off an investigation headed up by Agent Tom Greer played by Will Smith.....sorry I meant Bruce Willis.

OK that's it. I'm done trying to review this movie. I will just get into what made Surrogates a watered down blah blah sci-fi flick.

In a nutshell if it hasn't been made clear by my ramblings, this movie feels like a sequel to Will Smith's I, Robot. The main similarity is the fact that in both movies the world is self reliant on technology to the point where the most mundane tasks are taken care of by said technology. Surrogates however, takes it all the way to people not even living anymore. Aside from that minor tweak, the stories are exactly the same.

A crime takes place, a burned out cop returns to his element reluctantly to solve the case and the bad guy turns out to be not who you think it is.

If I had to describe Surrogates in 2 words they would be, underdeveloped and inconsistent. They give you glimpse of Greer's back story and what makes him lukewarm toward the surrogates but they don't pay it off. This was also a main example of the inconsistency. Greer doesn't like the fact that his wife uses her surrogate but he uses his to work. Too much of an inconsistent and hypocritical feel to make the story flow properly.

Bottom line....

Surrogates has that been there done that mojo and that's not a good sign when you are trying to play off what was probably a pretty original graphic novel. There was not enough here to save it from comparing it to other films of the same ilk.

On the 5 star scale. Surrogates gets 1.5 stars and a split "Save The Loot/Netflix It" recommendation.

That's all for today. Coming up.

9
The Informant
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

Until Next Episode...."I'll Save You A Seat!"

"D"