IS it just me, or do a whole rash of recent releases seem to be preoccupied with the idea of living through somebody else?
This month saw the launch of Gamer, where gawky teenagers control the actions of despicable prisoners, and now we have Surrogates, a Bruce Willis vehicle in which people interact through robotic avatars.
It all feels a bit last year, when Second Life was still a talking point, but there’s obviously someone in Hollywood who thinks living vicariously through technology is a cool new idea. Someone who never saw The Matrix, presumably.
Anyway, it’s a load of old cobblers, with Bruce Willis’ attempts at gravitas woefully undercut by a truly appalling haircut (think blond, think floppy).
Disappointing, because in some respects the film’s premise is quite an interesting one. In the first act, for example, Willis is called in to investigate the destruction of two surrogates caught in flagrante down a dingy alleyway.
The male and female surrogates both turn out to be controlled by male operators, opening up interesting possibilities for exploring how people re-invent themselves through technology.
Willis’ character, however, can only deliver a small forest of gruff one-liners before slouching off in search of the perpetrators.
Ultimately, the script doesn’t seem to have the courage to explore its own ideas in any detail, caught between high-concept sci-fi allegory (of which District 9 is an excellent recent example), and straightforward action thriller.
The result is a rather non-committal film that never seems entirely sure of its purpose or message. The general moral undertone would seem to imply it’s better to live in the real world than through a virtual equivalent, but so much time is spent documenting the superficial (and almost entirely sexual) benefits of surrogacy that any genuine attempt at social comment is fatally undermined.
Admittedly one rather impressive aspect of Surrogates is the makeup, with everyone looking quite impossibly plastic and artificial.
The aesthetic of superficiality is convincingly done, but it’s just a shame such a lack of depth is also a feature of the acting and scripting.

Rating: **
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