I hate the word avatar. Seriously,
could we get a chain smoking TV
executive from the 60’s to name
things right here in 2010? I hate
the word avatar… I love the movie
Avatar,
but it didn’t change my general
dislike for the word.
Surrogates
is about real-world avatars… or
surrogates- short for surrogate
bodies. In the future hardly anybody
is going to go outside and function
in the real world… we’ll all do it
through our surrogate bodies. Maybe
the idea is a bit extreme, but it’s
definitely possible. Technology is
advancing in robotics, but the
reality where this would be possible
is our culture’s addiction to
MySpace and Facebook. Especially the
awful sim games where you take care
of a pet or do something incredibly
stupid.. All stuff that you could do
in real life! So our culture sucks
in that aspect and it’s very
possible for our culture to get into
an extreme situation like the one
that’s going on in
Surrogates.
In
Surrogates
Bruce Willis is Tom Greer, a police
detective that lives in a world
without homicide and really ‘true’
crime because everybody is using
their surrogate bodies. Everyone
lives virtually so human’s don’t get
into any trouble. It’s created
somewhat of a perfect world with no
homicides taking place in 15 years
and crime being virtually
eliminated. When a couple of dead
bodies pop up the people in charge
start to freak out and it’s up to
Greer to figure out what’s going on
and how a real person can die when
their surrogate body is killed.
The movie makes some serious social
connections. This type of thing
could happen. It would be extreme,
yes. But it could definitely happen.
That’s where
we seem as a culture in lots of
ways. That’s the best thing about
this movie. We can’t give the
writers the credit for the concept
though…. The story is based on
Venditti’s graphic novel. Director
Jonathan Mostow, who delivered one
of the worst futuristic movies ever
in Terminator 3, isn’t terrible
here… But there was no tone and no
mood added to the visuals. The only
thing added in that respect were
some effects with makeup and things
of that nature to make certain
things look like plastic. Look at a
movie like Terminator: Salvation.
It’s not as good as a movie as this
is, but it has a distinct ‘feel’ to
it.
Surrogates
doesn’t in
that respect and it misses that.
Other than the feel Mostow delivers
a good story with
Surrogates
and he doesn’t mess that up. Other
than the social connection, this is
a Bruce Willis movie and the guy is
badass. When Bruce Willis is 95
years old and looks old and frail- I
want to see him smokin' dudes and
saving the day. It’s just who he is.
The Blu-ray
installment of this movie is a
decent one. First and foremost you
get an awesome music video of
Breaking Benjamin’s “I Will Not
Bow.” After that you get a
director’s commentary with Jonathan
Mostow, a comparison piece on the
adapting the graphic novel to a
movie, and you also get an
interesting feature that shows you
how we could actually live in a
world full of surrogate bodies.
Surrogates
is full of action and surprises AND
it has Bruce Willis. It’s a
thriller-type movie that has a
Minority Report
whodunit. It’s a good warning to
everyone who keeps asking me to give
them corn points or whatever else on
Facebook. To each his own, this is
true, but let’s just stop here
before it gets too close to reality.
Bruce Willis isn’t always going to
be here to save us. Good movie… and
I rest my case.
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