Movie Review: Surrogates

Surrogates is the latest film to feature Bruce Willis. It's an action sci-fi combination that plays on familiar themes, and slips in a bit ot philosophy/politics when you aren't looking.

Starting with the plot, it does have one. It's not hard to follow and it is set-up well. The progrssion of AI and robotics eventually leads to the creation of human looking Waldo's. Initally meant to be an aid to the disabled, it is adapted by the millitary and then consumer versions. The device becomes wildly popular and soon the entire world is using this. The ultimate couch potatoe luxury item for everyone.

Well almost everyone. There are humans that are against the idea. And they set-up conclaves within the U.S. and presumably the world, where no machinery exists. Essentially they are ludites.

All of this you probably got from the trailers for the movie. But the plot quickly moves around. We start with a murder, actually 2 of them, via the surrogate machines. Then we shift to a conspiracy to another one, and then to a love story, and finally to a moral dilema.

All of the themes work on a level, to an extent. But they all fail as well. The biggest problem is that you don't feel like any side in this film is really all that compelling.

Ving Rhames character is a support role, but not very essential to the movie, though he is a key to the plot. In fact everyone except Willis is basically a weak minor support. Which would be fine, but the acting of Willis seems as weary and devoid of emotion as the surrogate robots the fill this movie world.

The special effects of the film are decent but not spectacular. The same can be said of the CGI scenes. Overall you geta bland feeling in looking at the various city scenes. Which is likely what was intended, as this is the effect of the surrogates.

Are there plot holes in the film? Many, and the pace of the film allows you time to wonder about them. Is there lots of gunplay and explosions? Not as much as you would thing. Though there are more than a few scenes of large groups of people being destroyed, except these are all robots so everyone is safe.

The big question of the film is, what makes us human? Is technology a tool for our benefit or a means of destroying us while we still live?

The end of the film is like the rest of it, a bit contrived and far too neat to be believable.

There is a bit of humor though in seeing what most of the characters really look like without their robotic counterparts.Not enough to make the film worthwhile but interesting for a few seconds. Similar to what we learn of the guy controlling the wife in the boring Gamer film.

There's not much to say about Surrogates as there isn't that much to speak about. The film is not compelling, you don't really feel engaged at any point. Overall it was a decent film but not worth a movie ticket. I'd propbaly buy the DVD to keep up with my Bruce Willis collection of films, but that would be the only reason.

Movie Preview: Surrogates

What if you were to take the themes of WestWorld and The Matrix, add in a waldo (not the character) and some I Robot (the book not the substandard movie), what might you get? Well these are likely sources that helped to create Surrogates.

The concept is hardly new. We have a world of luxury, or so it seems. A future where people are even more removed from interacting with each other than we do know with the internet. Almost a world like Logan’s Run, separated from everything around us – effectively in a trap of our own creation.

Suddenly this “ideal” world has a serious problem. Our hero, Bruce Willis, is an unwilling piece in a series of events that move towards a revelation that will affect everyone. And the punch-line will be either anti-climactic or dead-on.



Considering the normally successful choices of films Bruce Willis has been in over his career (once he got past his first film) this film starts on a good foot. The addition of Ving Rhames is another plus to the film. Robots and a decent amount of action can’t hurt either.

But this film will be more plot heavy than most sci-fi these days. I expect that the first 15 minutes will be critical for the film, much like in Blade Runner. So keeping the plot holes small will be very critical to it being a good movie.

The look of the film is pretty consistent with most futuristic films these days. Nothing special there. And the special effects look to be lighter than most on the CGI front, which I find to be a bonus.

I can’t say that I want to run out and see this film. But I’m not dreading the fact that I will review this either. Thus this is a middle of the field movie. Likely to be worth the time of fans of sci-fi and Bruce Willis and Ving Rhames (unless Rhames has a mostly cameo role – which seems likely). But it’s all down to the writing on this one.

Mission Impossible 4 - more explosions, more Tom Cruise close-ups

Well the news is out. Tom Cruise will be doing yet another Mission Impossible movie. But I wonder if we really care.

Given that Tom Cruise makes money every time he shows up on a screen. It’s actually very hard to think of a movie with Cruise, in the past decade or so, that was not a blockbuster. Of course that does not mean they were great films. Just greatly packaged.

But specifically when we think of the Mission Impossible films, we are reminded that this is the revisioned idea of the series that spawned the big screen adaptation. There is almost no connection between the television series and the movies.


Because Cruise knows how to market to the youth, men and women.

The Mission Impossible films are lots of flash, explosions, a couple of cool stunts, and massive amounts of close-ups of Tom Cruise removing a face mask while inevitably running.



Occasionally we get a glimpse of a team, something dropped hard in the early minutes of the first film. Why pay extra money for a cast of celebrities when you can just show Cruise smiling again? I mean it’s not like the youth market expects a “remake” to have anything to do with its original source.

So I expect that the next Mission Impossible film will include generous amounts of the following:

• Big explosions
  
• A chase on a motorcycle, and cars
  
• Tons of shooting with automatic pistols and assault rifles
  
• A bunch of tech gadgets every guy would love to have
  
• At least a dozen nameless bad guys that will be killed off seconds after being seen
  

• Location shooting in at least 3 major cities (probably European)
  
• At least one major stunt involving Cruise doing something that the insurance companies will hate (likely in the first 5 minutes of the film or the last 10)
  

• Oh, at least 2 very slender and somewhat exotic women. Probably 1 of them will be topless or allude to nakedness and/or sex. It is a Summer movie you know.
  

Beyond these essential items, a very loose plot will be formed. It will mandate that Cruise don and remove a mask in a big close-up, invariably running at the time. We will be able to notice that Luther (Ving Rhames) and some actor that no one really knows or cares about (beyond his mom, family, friends and landlord) will be in a few scenes to allude to team actions – all executed primarily by Cruise. And I expect that Cruise’s character (Ethan Hunt) will either be divorced and bitter, or really upset after having a major blowout with his on-screen wife (from the 3rd film) – which is bad news for the first bad guy he finds.

We might get Laurence Fishburne back for a return as the boss. Possible a quick scene or too of comedian Simon Pegg in a return role.

So will I go to see this film? Probably.

I already know that these films are light on anything but action. They are virtually forgettable, but provide a great distraction for a couple of hours. In fact I don’t consider this Mission Impossible, but Mission Explode Lots Of Stuff. Which can work after a long day of work in the real world.

So plan ahead that at least one day in 2011 will be spent at the theater. Just don’t expect it to be memorable.

Movie preview: Echelon Conspiracy

I saw a great film trailer recently. The movie is called Echelon Conspiracy. This could be a very good film, or it will be a miserable rip-off of several successful films. So far it's hard to tell.



Essentially the movie revolves around a concept we have seen before. The world is filled with technology, and someone or something is always monitoring all that information floating around. It's Big Brother to the Nth level.

But there are some that can manipulate all this knowledge. And a lowly joe average is lucky to be the one in possession of the device with all the answers. Or unlucky, as all previous owners are dead.

In a bit of a take on the movie Magic, a cell phone talks to the latest owner. It will help the owner out of trouble with police, other people, financial debt and plane crashes (possibly caused by the phone to make a point). Anything. But you can never turn it off, nor not listen to what it tells you to do. In fact there was an episode of the Twilight Zone that went like that too - in a diner and a machine that can predict the future.

But unlike the device in the television show, this one will actively set about killing you if you don't listen to it. Still you get to travel the world, have tons of money, and intense fun. If you call every agency in the world hunting you, all willing to kill you for the device, fun.

In particular is some shadowy U.S. Government agency that is very interested in this device. It seems to be connected to other shadowy things our government is not supposed to do. That is run by Martin Sheen. Who is on a power trip bigger than when he was on the West Wing.

The other problem for our hapless owner of the cell phone? It wants him to do things for it. Seemingly random things. But that's just chaos theory. And at this point we touch on Eagle Eye. Especially why the person in control can't do all this themselves.

But if the writer ever read Mona Lisa Overdrive (a really good book by William Gibson) then there may not be a person involved at all. Like in the book, and in Ghost in the Shell, the cell phone is just one spot that an AI program is hiding. It was created in secret to break any code barrier and spy on everyone for its creators. But it became self-aware (like Skynet) and ran.

The random actions of the owners of the cell phone, directed by the cell phone, are meant to hide the set of dominoes needed to permanently get the government off the back of the AI. Killing them (cell owners) is just part of the process of ensuring they can't reveal anything that might tip everyone off to what is happening.

Now that story can be entertaining. It's been done before many times, as noted above. But when it's done right it's highly entertaining. Of course when its done wrong, you sit back and wonder which is hurting you worse, the stimulus plan or the movie. In the case of films like Eagle Eye, it was the movie.

So am I interested in this film? Sure am. It has action, technology, maybe a twist or 2, and great actors like Martin Sheen, Ving Rhames, and Ed Burns. Given that I think there will be plot hole large enough to drive a semi through, but there should be enough explosions and crashes to keep the mind from paying attention, we can hope. But there is the off chance that the writer, or the execs in Hollywood, actually bet above the common demoninator, which the cast seems to imply. So we may find that it makes sense and is invigorating to watch.

We have some time before the film comes out. That's another plus. It means that Hollywood thinks it has a chance to make money, so some level of quality should be involved. But ultimately only time will tell. I'll be watching.