Willis comes to the rescue in new sci-fi offering
Published 8:00 am Wednesday, September 30, 2009
“Surrogates”
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence, disturbing images, language, sexuality and a drug-related scene.
Three weeks from now, I will have forgotten “Surrogates.” Three years from now, Bruce Willis will probably have forgotten he starred in this science fiction film. And yet, it was not terrible; it was not dull; it just wasn’t original. Minutes into the film, I knew how it would end. And yet, I had fun watching it.
I like Bruce Willis. He plays the same role, time and again, but he is like my favorite pair of loafers: worn and frayed but comfortable nevertheless.
In “Surrogates,” it is the future and robotics has become so advanced that people do not need to leave home to work. Everybody can be a telecommuter. Only their cyber presence is in the form of a robot built to their narcissistic specifications: handsome and/or beautiful; forever young and cosmetically flawless. In this future, one can just crawl out of bed — in underwear (or not) and plop on a chair (that looks like it belongs in a dentist’s office), strap on some electrodes and goggles and let your “surrogate” do the walking and working.
Bruce Willis: old, unshaven, unwashed, and “unhirsuted” becomes young, shaved, washed, and, yes, blondly “hirsuted.” He looks like he is a manager of an Ikea store but he isn’t; he is an FBI agent investigating a murder. Surrogates should keep their controllers safe from harm, but someone is able to fry not only their surrogates…but the bath-robed puppeteer at home.
Everybody uses these surrogates. Well, not everybody; some humans refuse. These folks are known as “dreads,” as in “dreadlocks.” This is because the leader of these neo-Luddites looks like a Jamaican (played by Ving Rhames) practitioner of a marijuana-smoking cult — but he doesn’t have the accent.
As you might expect, people who can hide from society, behind a screen of superficial technology, become emotionally stunted. Bruce Willis’ wife hides not only from her husband but herself as well…and gets so wrapped up in her surrogate’s physical perfection, she succumbs to a little virtual-debauchery. Soon our Bruce Willis, the worn one, is torn from his mannequin-Bruce Willis form and subsequently feels some separation anxiety…until he smashes his wife’s surrogate’s surrogate-lover to a bucket of bits and bolts.
Confused? Well, I won’t blame you. There seems to be some parts of this plot that don’t compute…but there are some parts that are fun to watch anyway.
I love this one character: a lumpy and dumpy computer nerd who seems to have his fingers on the keyboard that controls the entire world’s surrogates for, of course, “The Government.” He is not “evil,” he is just a slob that appeals to us “real” folks because the perfect robotic people give us a bit of the willies. In one scene, he burps much to the disgust of a surrogate so accustomed is she to not having to “dress (and bathe) for success.” Appearances for humans, in this Shallow New World, take on a whole different meaning.
This is hardly a hard-edged social commentary. Not a trace of Czech cinematic Magic Realism here; after all this film has Bruce Willis in it. Yet, there is some cool symbolism here. When people get emotional, they really do draw up into a shell…or, rather, draw away from their shell. They physically take off their electrodes and their surrogates instantly shut down and turn into stone, like steel and plastic statues.
As I said, the ending is obvious — so no surprise there. The depth of the story is thinner than a 30-minute Twilight Zone episode, but compelling in a mindless sort of way. The producers and director are a little sloppy and lazy but I enjoyed it. The action stuff was compelling but The Prophet and “dread people” scenes seemed downright stupid. I love Ving Rhames but they wasted him. And Oscar-winner James Cromwell is really “slumming it” playing an older Steve Jobs/Bill Gates character.
But Bruce is just Bruce, God love his seedy, bald, and grumpy self. He saved the movie, I think. I won’t remember that he was in it a year from now, but it was fun seeing him up on the screen, both in the flesh and in the plastic.
Surrogates get three bow ties out of five.