Surrogates

When I first saw the trailer for Surrogates, I was looking forward to seeing it, but after hearing several people give it unfavorable reviews and seeing it only got 6.3 stars on IMDB, I decided to wait until it was out on DVD. I think the best thing you can do to make a movie enjoyable is to go in with low expectations. Since I had only heard how mediocre it was, I was not expecting much, but I was pleasantly surprised and actually enjoyed it.

Bruce Willis gave a good performance. In this film, he is a serious, depressed, and vulnerable cop unlike the cocky invincible character he played in the Die Hard movies. I really appreciated the details and the special effects and the visual contrast between many of the characters and their robot avatars or surrogates.

I thought it was a cool sci-fi story and although much of it was original, there were still occasional shades of I Robot, Westworld, Faceoff, The Matrix, Avatar, and Minority Report. I'm sure the book was better than the movie, but aren't they all? I really liked how the movie portrayed people's reluctance to experience face to face human interaction.

Spoiler: The final scene features dazed citizens coming out of their homes exploring the real world after all their surrogates have been destroyed. The look on their faces reminded me of the fear and discomfort a teenager might display when asked to unplug from their Ipod at a social gathering or to get off the computer when company comes over.

Surrogates is not a perfect movie, but it is much better than what I expected. There is quite a bit of social commentary and insight into human nature. It addresses confidence, fear, pride, vanity, while at the same time providing a mystery story, with action and cool special effects. I can't complain. It was more mentally stimulating than most movies. I give it 7.2 Stars.

On a side note, I'd like to congratulate Avatar for recently passing Titanic. I was hoping Dark Knight could have done it last year, but apparently it took another James Cameron movie to do so. I just hope he's doing ok financially now.