DVD Review: Surrogates (2009)

Surrogates, the new Bruce Willis Sci-fi actioner (released on DVD January 26th) is, at best, 90 distracting minutes that you quickly forget about the nanosecond after you stop your player. You can understand why it barely made a box-office blip when it was released last September (be honest, you had no idea this made it into theaters), but in the privacy of your own home, wearing nothing but pajama pants, you come to realize with lowered expectations and copious inhaling of chips and beer that...

Surrogates really isn’t that bad.

The movie really isn’t within the area code of ‘good’...but you’ll have a better time than you’d expect, because you didn’t really have any expectations that rated higher than a 4 on a scale of 10. It’s not like you’re going to see anything good in theaters this month that you haven’t seen dozens of times involving those rubbery blue people.

Unless of course, you like unintentionally laughing during the god-awful Legion’s battle of angels and demons. Further proof that Dennis Quaid will appear in just about anything. In fact, he appears later in this review because we told him we found out where in the netherspehere ex-wife Meg Ryan disappeared.

Or you’re really enamored with George of the Jungle and Indiana Jones crossing swords in order to raise money so they can cure some disease in an early season entry for the worst movie of 2010. That dizzy feeling you’re getting is from you rolling your eyes or shutting them really tight so you don’t have to watch Brendan Fraser and Harrison Ford embarrass themselves. Maybe they should have gotten George Clooney to help

Yes, Mel “The Jew Hunter” Gibson’s new movie is also coming out. But you’re boycotting it because you’re Jewish and he hates you because he thinks you’re responsible for all the wars on the planet. Hey, it’s public record...

So you’re left with renting a DVD. And since you’ll be skipping Saw 6 unless you’re in the mood for a good laugh, Surrogates seems like the best bet while your download finishes

It’s 14 years into the future. We know this because of the huge title card that reads ‘14 Years from now’. Sorry, you’re going to have to do the math yourself, but if you’re a product of our outstanding US public school system, then you should be able to figure it out.Using your phone.

The world is overrun with Surrogates (affectionately called ‘Surreys’). It’s the in thing to do and if you’re not into Surrogates, then you’re just a pathetic meat-puppet. People are strapping themselves into a chair and using super-complicated neuron sensors they’re able to control really, good looking mechanized versions of themselves. Most of the time their surrogates don’t look like the original users at all.

It’s like Avatar only instead of changing into tall blue things you mostly look like 60-year old matrons with too much plastic surgery or those crash-test dummies that were in all those commercials years ago. But that’s okay, because if you ALL look like Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest or Bette Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, then nobody blinks twice.

Thanks to Surrogates, Crime is down, Discrimination drops, Sexism plummets. Boredom arises.

If you follow the movie’s own logic (based on the graphic novel by Robert Venditti), then contrary to Mel Gibson’s fueled-by-alcohol theory that Jews are the cause of problems in the world, it is in fact ugly people that cause everything on our ball of rock and gas to go awry.

Whowouldathunk a Bruce Willis movie would provide such insight?

Not all is well in Surrogate Shangri-La, as there’s a small but powerful faction of humans (called the Dreads) that are against the very idea of Surrogacy and they hole themselves up in shanties were no Surrogates are allowed. It’s like District 9, but in reverse. They’re led by the very charismatic, very dreadlocked Zaire Powell (Ving Rhames), also known as the Prophet.

It’s only a matter of time before these 2 worlds collide. Why not now, at about the 13 minute mark? Because...

...A Surrogate is walking into a bar. No, that’s not the beginning of a joke, but a tracking shot where we follow an unnamed Surrogate as he gets a drink, dances with all the lovely lady Surrogates, and then takes one out into the alley for a Surrogate make out session.

We realize that someone was following that particular Surrogate, someone with a motorcycle helmet on and a machine that looks like one of those creepy animal vibrators. What does that machine do?

It apparently fries the faces off Surrogates, as that’s what Helmethead does to our previously pimpin’ Surrogate. But that’s okay, because the guy operating the Surrogate is still alive, just booted offline. He or she can just purchase another Surrogate from the corner store.

Unless the operator is really dead. But how is that possible? How can you kill someone through their Surrogate? Perhaps the vibrator looking thing can answer that question as it seems to do more than “relieve tension from your back” or “soothe your leg muscles”.

But what kind of being would purposely attack a Surrogate? I’ll bet it was someone ugly

But why? It’s up to Agents Greer (Bruce Willis) and Peters (Rahda Mitchell) to find out.

They find out that Surrogates User or “victim” as they say 14 years from now, was in fact killed. That’s impossible!!! Surrogacy has practically eliminated things like that from occurring.

No, it’s not impossible, because it just happened. Damn those Ugly people...

The victim was named Jared Canter. Cause of death: “brain liquefied in his skull”.
Does that mean anything to the reader? Not really, because the reader hasn’t gotten the necessary exposition within the first 5 minutes that the viewer gets.
Jared Canter is the son of Lionel Canter.

(Still doesn’t mean shit to me. Explain further)

Lionel Canter (James Cromwell, AKA Farmer Hoggett) is the creator of Surrogacy.

(Wow, that’s a punch to the viewer’s gut. But who would want Lionel Canter’s son DEAD? Unless it was someone, or some bloc of people who loathe the very idea of Surrogacy, see it as anathema to the very idea of humanity, and would be willing to spend money on technology, and be willing to kill, just to prove their point. And who better to kill than the SON of the man who created Surrogacy. But who would want to do such a thing?)

There is a group of people like that in fact...as stated earlier in the review. Just scroll up and read it...or I can cut and paste the entire thing again for your lazy ass.

“Not all is well in Surrogate Shangri-La, as there’s a SMALL BUT POWERFUL FACTION OF HUMANS (CALLED THE DREADS) THAT ARE AGAINST THE VERY IDEA OF SURROGACY, and they hole themselves up in shanties were no Surrogates are allowed. It’s like District 9, but in reverse. They’re led by the very charismatic, very dreadlocked Zaire Powell (Ving Rhames), also known as the Prophet.”

(Hmmm....I’ll bet it’s that group of people who hate Surrogacy led by Ving Rhames. The Dreads. They killed Jared Canter to send a message to Lionel Canter. That’s who I think did it and I’m probably right)

Or maybe that’s what they want you to think, but don’t worry because Bruce Willis is on the case. He can help because it’s established earlier in the movie that Agent Greer has a dead son (as shown by a dusty picture and a child’s room so tidy that you know he has to be dead because no kid but a dead one could keep a room so neat), so he can, you know, relate to the other character that has a dead son.

And what Agent Greer could find could end up costing him his Surrogate. Or his life.

What works with Surrogates-

We’ve all seen countless movies where Bruce Willis gets the crap kicked out of him and still motors on. It’s part of what we like about him as a movie star when his movies are decent. Yes, Agent Greer is a standard Willis character, but for the first time in a long time, we actually FEEL for Greer when he gets beaten up. Part of it is because the Greer Surrogate looks like Bruce Willis from his Moonlighting days and then when you’re shown the real Greer he just looks so...old. It’s effective in keeping the audience on Greer’s side as not everything he does is the John McClane Bruce we’re used to seeing.

The last time we saw Bruce Willis and Ving Rhames together, one of them was using a Samurai Sword to save the other one from being ass-raped. Like seeing Kobe and Shaq playing together at last year’s All-Star game, well placed nostalgia can be a wonderful thing.

(I still think it was Ving Rhames and the Dreads who killed Jared Canter and who are behind the whole thing. They’ve got motive and the drive accomplish such a feat)

Inner Monologue, shut up while I’m trying to finish the review. If it really were the Dreads and Ving Rhames, would they take pains in establishing them so early in the movie? You’re supposed to think it’s them because we’re only 20 minutes in.

(No, it’s still them. I’ll bet you...)

A well executed shot of Surrogates...falling. It’s one of those shots that bears looking at again simply because it’s so well done.

4) The Moral of the Story: Be happy being you...or else your brains will be liquefied .

What doesn’t work... besides idiot Inner Monologues who actually believe the first suspect introduced in a movie is actually the killer...unless it’s used for the audience to dismiss at first and then it turns out to really be the killer, like in the first Scream or something-

Other than a below-average foot chase, the movie doesn’t have as much action as you’d expect/hope as director Jonathan Mostow (Terminator 3, Breakdown), hopes story and character propel the movie well enough. For the most part it doesn’t, but the movie’s so short that it’s easily forgiven.

2) Great actress Rahda Mitchell (Melinda and Melinda, that awful Silent Hill) is given nothing to do but be a standard movie cop partner. Her character doesn’t even have an affair with Greer or constantly remind him that his son his dead (for purely motivational purposes). She deserves a much better part.

Overall. You could do better than Surrogates, but odds are anything better out there you’ve seen already. You could prepare for the future of Surrogacy by sitting in your favorite chair and programming your Netflix Queue for Surrogates next. You’ve got a week before the Super Bowl, so why not. It’s not like you were going to exercise or read a book...

DVD EXTRAS- A video timeline of Bruce Willis’ hairline throughout the years, plus an exclusive interview, audio Commentary by director Jonathan Mostow and why he doesn’t like the nickname JoMo, a Bruce Willis/Ving Rhames onscreen reunion video called “Since you were raped”, deleted scenes, scenes from other movies entirely, and what Bruce Willis really thinks of Ashton Kutcher