Fletch's Film Review: Surrogates

You probably never saw Last Action Hero, and if you did, you've probably flushed it from your memory. It serves as a guilty pleasure for me, though then again, I never thought it was as bad as everyone made it out to be. Anyway, there's a series of scenes I enjoy quite a bit; our protagonist, Danny Madigan (Austin O'Brien) has been transported into the land of movies. Long story short, he's paired as the partner to cop/last action hero Jack Slater (Arnold Schwarzenneger). Right off the bat, he's trying to convince Slater that his life is all just a part of a movie. Madigan takes him to a video store to look for Schwarzenneger films, but they don't exist. He asks someone for their phone number, gets the standard "555-..." response, and reasons that that severely limits the capabilities of the phone system, especially in L.A. The girl behind the counter overhears this conversation, and the following exchange occurs:

Blockbuster girl: Is this your kid?
Slater: Oh no. He is a mental patient that I am taking downtown.
Madigan: What about this girl? She is too attractive to work here.
Slater: I agree. I think she should work with us. Undercover of course.
Madigan: The point is there are no unattractive women here. Where are the ordinary women?

It's not a terrible film, but this will be my lasting memory of Surrogates: serving as the one film where the neverending supply of gorgeous extras is 100% justified.

Aside from that nugget, Surrogates probably serves as one of the least necessary and least memorable films of all time. It's premise (in the future, most people don't leave the safety of their own home, preferring to send out robotic versions of themselves) is a mashup of several familiar films, from Blade Runner to I, Robot to The Island to Strange Days, and it doesn't seem to offer any new ideas. It's a passable form of entertainment, one that doesn't insult your intelligence with over-explanations or "No way!" action sequences; for the most part, it plays it straight, and even attempts to ratchet up the dramatic factor by bringing a Minority Report-ish dead child narrative into the fold so that Bruce Willis and Rosamund Pike (who plays his now-distant wife, in more ways than one) can act sad and/or angry on occasion. It's just that, aside from a few fun bon mots dealing with the realities of what might happen should people get to choose a real-life avatar (hey, isn't there a movie coming out by that name? Hmmm...), such as being introduced to a large, athletic, young black man (surrogate) that turns out to be a 50s-ish Murray Steinberg type, there isn't a whole lot to take away from it.

Fletch's Film Rating:

	"Whatever."

Shaky Cam Rating (details):	LAMBScore:

P.S. - Ok, though I said it neither offers much intelligent nor insults said intelligence, there certainly were some head-scratchers. Here are some, along with any other random thoughts I had:

* There's not an easier way for a film set in the future to bother me than to not pay attention to the cars on the road. Surrogates is set in 2017 (according to Wikipedia, which is odd, because I swear that title cards said "14 years from now"). and yet everyone's driving 2009 Toyota Priuses and 2009 Chevy Cobalts and sh*t. WTF? So, super-advanced robotic technology will have worked its way to photo realism in 8 years (and crime will vanish), but we'll all still be driving our cars from today (which look brand new eight years from now, too)? Really?

* It's nice to see that James Cromwell is interested in recycling, it's just too bad that the producers of Surrogates couldn't have figured out a way to electronically cut and paste his scenes from I, Robot into this flick. Might've saved everyone some time and money.

* So, a certain character switches the surrogate they're using in an attempt to fly under the radar and remain inconspicuous...yet driving around in a Maybach (or whatever) doesn't contradict that? (Thanks to Mrs. Fletch for this one.)

* All they had to do was show a real-life human being exercising once - just once - to eradicate the oh-so-obvious "If people are plugged-in vegetables a la Wall*E, why aren't they all fat asses?" But no such dice.

* You know what? I need to stop talking/reading/thinking about this movie. If you're ever in limbo about a film and are doing some research to get an answer to a question you might have (like, "What kind of car is it that that character was driving around in while trying to be inconspicuous?"), just stop. All I found were more questions regarding the logic of the film, plot holes, inconsistencies, etc., and if I keep reading them, I'll hate this flick in no time time.