Surrogates

October 2009

A cross between the stoically painted “Sims” livelihood and a disastrous subversion from “The Terminator”, we get: Surrogates. This sci-fi flick shows a seemingly perfect but vapid world filled with flawlessly soignée robots that are vicariously living the daily quotidian affairs of their owners. These synthetic humans are neurally controlled by their couch potato human counterparts in the comforts of their own home. The dreams of every homosexual and dare I say, people with flaw-stricken appearances come true in this shallow and synthetic surrogated society where everybody looked like they stepped out of a GQ or Sports Illustrated Magazine.

Jonathan Mostow speculatively elicited a microcosm of the society itself of today’s time. The juxtaposition between the eerie but plausible Surrogates and the formidable Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines has certain commonness since they are both directed by Mostow. Starrer Bruce Willis plays as a flawless yet apathetic looking agent Tom Greer and partnered with an also perfectly exquisite looking woman with porcelain skin in the light of day. Rosamund Pike portrays as Maggie, Willis’ significant other that is surrogate-addicted and works as a hairdresser applying touch ups to the overly maintained facades of the surros.

The movie’s tone educes thraldom to the overreliance with machines. Mostow reminded me somehow of our pervious world. Indomitable discoveries have inundated our society as science continues to grow rapidly. Mankind has always brought forth the ameliorations of different gizmos and gadgets and have continued to build useful machines that are beneficial to our labor and lifestyle and thus, make Surrogates the product of the feasible upshot of technology.

Surely we expect a Bruce Willis movie to be an action-packed, adrenaline rushed, clock ticking suspense flick and Surrogates managed to promise the anticipations within a breezy 88 minutes.