The Writer's Eye

What is there to say about Surrogates? The answer: not a whole hell of a lot. For an action movie it had very little publicity, and when you look at the amount of money it made, you feel that everyone involved in the making of this movie lost money.

Bruce Willis was the one bright spot in a movie with a script bad enough to put you to sleep. I have been a fan of him since his performance in Die Hard (remember that one?). Since then he has come to deliver powerful performances in movies like Armageddon, Tears of the Sun, the Die Hard sequels, and much more. As always, his acting is top notch in this movie, but the bad plot and horrid pacing drown it in a sea of awfulness.

Surrogates got off to a strong start, but it did what so many other action movies tend to do these days: It took an original concept, ran with it, and ruined it. The original idea had a ton of potential, but as the movie progressed it became nothing more than a snooze-fest.

Basically, people don’t leave their homes anymore. Ever. They lie in a chair all day and control these androids (Surrogates) with their minds. You can see the appeal. No fear of injury, a drop in crime, ugly people becoming pretty, etc. But like all great things it had its faults, and eventually I came to realize that this movie is sort of like Irobot 1.5

What starts off as creative storytelling soon blurs into one mind-numbing action scene after another. There are few twists in this movie (save for one), and on the whole you feel like they are insulting your intelligence. The ending can be seen coming from a mile away, and as the credits began to roll I was just anxious to pull the damned thing out of the drive and pop in something better. This flick isn’t even worth the price you pay for a bag of popcorn. If you have to watch it, then at least try not to think too much of the plot, and enjoy the action alongside Willis’ superb acting.

Surrogates (2009): 3.7/10