|
What if you could look perfect all the time, not age
and not have to go out and deal with the real world but
sent a robotic surrogate in your place? The premise of “Surrogates”
based on a graphic novel is fascinating and while Jonathan
Mostow’s (“Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines”, “U571”)
fails to dig into the implications of the world he creates,
he still manages to create an entertaining and diverting
movie. "Surrogates" may have been adapted from a graphic
novel but the themes and the characters remind me of the
work of science fiction author Philip K. Dick who had a
fascination with how we define our identity, how we define
our humanity and how technology changes those definitions
putting emotional and physical stress as it causes us to
uncomfortably reevaluate who we are. ***
FBI agents Tom Greer (Bruce Willis) and Jennifer Peters
(Radha Mitchell)are called on to solve the murder of a college
student slumming in his father’s surrogate. It seems some
device used by a “Meatbag” (as those using surrogates refer
to people that go out in person) can destroy the surrogate
robots and also fry the brains of their operators. Unfortunately,
the victim is the son of the founder of VSI the company
that builds and markets surrogates. Greer and Peters run
into an obstacle in the form of the “prophet” (Ving Rhames)
the head of the Human Coalition a group that is against
the use of ANY surrogates. ***
Mostow’s film has a fascinating premise—if we inhabit
these surrogates and live through them does it rob us of
the actual experience of living? Unfortunately writers Michael
Ferris and John D. Brancato working with Robert Venditti
and Brett Weldele’s graphic novel fails to develop the premise
to its fullest potential raising a lot of questions and
dropping them fairly quickly to move the narrative along.
While the mystery here (which is pretty transparent except
for a few clever surprises)is important since it is the
plot of the movie the film sacrifices character development
at the expense of a breakneck pace. Still, there’s more
good stuff here and then bad and “Surrogates” manages to
be an entertaining science fiction mystery flick that has
ambitions to be as good as “I, Robot” but doesn’t quite
scale those heights. ---
Image & Sound:
That waxy completion and lack of definition on the faces
of Bruce Willis and Rhada Mitchell you see early on isn’t
the result of digital noise reduction and over processing
but, instead, how they are supposed to look. You’ll see
why once you get into the film. Detail is strong particularly
for the human actors and skin tones are natural again for
“meat sacks”. Blacks are rock solid throughout and I didn’t
detect any compression artifacts. As is typical for a Disney
disc (this is released by Touchstone), the BD authoring
is impressive throughout. ***
The DTS 5.1 HD soundtrack matches the images in terms
of quality, depth and detail. The 5.1 mix nicely puts you
right in the center of the action but surrounds you with
plenty of detail. ---
|
