The Good Life? (Surrogates (DVD))

Member Name: sympatic

Product:	Surrogates (DVD)
Date:	01/11/09 (29 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good innovative idea

Disadvantages: Lack of other characters

Surrogates provides another vision of the future a little like I Robot in that it links our future living styles to our dependence on technology and in this case robots. In this future socety people are ble to control a robot which is their own property through a sort of mind control, this means that many people never leave the house as they get the robot to do everything for them.

Bruce Willis stars in this film as Tom Greer a man who stays in his home and lives his own life through his surrogate robot that looks the same as him. The fact that he works as a police officer does not seem to cause any issues, after all it is the robot that takes all the risks on his behalf however when a surrogate is killed the owner is also murdered and suddenly the robots do not seem to be mans best friend any more as owner and robot are linked through a neural connection and this weapon not only kills the surrogate but passes the death along the link to kill the human.

I thought the idea behind this movie was incredibly innovative and I linked the fact that it really got me thinking about how this could work, no more crappy jobs about the house, no more waiting in long queues at the post office or bank, no more having to the other half drone on endlessly about martial arts movies, just get the robot to do it for you. The fact that in the movie this technology almost turns the whole population into agrophobics is the down side I guess.

There is a dark brooding feel to this film that serves to show that waht sounds like a utopian existence is in fact far from it. Willis is excellent as Greer, he plays the scruffy unkempt detective well with some real soul searching in his character and he conveys the very real fear when his character finally sets foot out of the house. The contrast between him and his robot character is a testament to good make up and special effects. Overall in fact the special effects are really impressive.

If there is a weakness in the film it is that many of the other characters barely registerd on my consciousness, it was a film dominated by Willis andas such could have done with some more interesting characters and more forceful performances.

Well worth seeing and it gets four stars from me.

Summary: Sci Fi Thriller