Surrogates Movie Download

6 / 10

Generally decent thriller is a bit underrated
I’m a sucker for Bruce Willis movies. I also admit that I’m a fan of director Jonathan Mostow; his movies, such as TERMINATOR 3, might not be favourites, but he always seems to know how to deliver intense thrills and decent action. When I saw the two were combining for this science fiction thriller which looked a lot like I, ROBOT, I was delighted. What guy doesn’t like robots and the intriguing possibilities they pose in film? Thankfully, the movie is a darned sight better than that idiotic Will Smith outing, but it’s true to say that it’s no classic. The main problem with SURROGATES is the uneasy combination of a thinking man’s plot with the necessity to appeal to 13 year old boys. Thus, we get a thought-provoking, half-baked plot about mankind’s reliance on artificial help and the increasing agoraphobia faced by the laptop generation combined with some fairly run-of-the-mill thrills and spills of a typical thriller. This is an incredibly short film, and neither the plot nor the action are developed very much.

That’s not to say it’s not entertaining – because it is. Bruce Willis is reliable in an emotional turn, and he gets fine support from Rosamund Pike, Radha Mitchell, and Boris Kodjoe, with minor turns from the imposing Ving Rhames and the impossibly ancient James Cromwell. The film LOOKS good, thanks to Mostow and director of photography Oliver Wood, who’s been creating fine-looking films ever since DIE HARD 2 (his Bourne trilogy being a standout). The film has a heart-string tugging central relationship all about loss, grief, and love which gives it an extra dimension over many a lunkheaded shooter.

There are elements of I, ROBOT and THE MATRIX in the storyline, but the themes behind the thrills are far more interesting than the face-value plot. I also loved the creepy look of the surrogates themselves; they seemed to me to be a natural progression of the plastic surgery craze that’s been accepted in Hollywood for too many years. Okay, this isn’t a great film, but the well-crafted action and strong central performance make it more than watchable.Read More