A few nights ago on Charlie Brooker’s Gameswipe (BBC4 2009), comedy writer/director Graham Linehan (The IT Crowd and Father Ted) made a very interesting point where he bemoaned the lack of decent narrative in video games and likened it to what he perceives as a weakness in modern film – his contention is that films / videogames are increasingly written by people who don’t read. GTA is not satisfying because the writers have seen Brian De Palma’s Scarface (1983) too many times.
Carried over to film it is easy to see the correlation between the likes of Transformers (2007) and a severe lack of library cards. This is, of course, sheer speculation and may well be utterly wrong but a State-side aversion to literary ideas does seem to explain why a very interesting, but by no means great, film like District 9 (2009) is hailed as a masterpiece. It might also be the reason that a film like Surrogates, a genuinely intriguing and intelligent piece of science fiction, is denied reaching it’s full potential. The ideas are big and, in today’s multiplex culture, slightly too complicated and so the money men are nervous and the film feels limited. Having said all that, it could just be a case of director Mostow trying to do too much (unlikely as this guy is a journey man in the best sense of the term) but, if you look beyond the disparity of the riots and rallies stock footage and the twenty extras that they could afford for the original material, there is still plenty to enjoy…
Set in the near future, the film supposes a world where people interact with life via robotic surrogates. Whilst their faster, better, younger and stronger substitutes roam the streets and get numerous kicks, the real person remains safely at home seeing, smelling, hearing, and feeling every moment. Life has no risks, murder is a thing of the past and with identity essentially made meaningless discrimination is virtually a thing of the past. Of course there are those that do not like this brave new world but they are a stark minority that dwell in flesh only ghettos. Amidst all this Detective Tom Greer (Bruce Willis) and his partner Amanda Holden, sorry I mean Detective Peters (Radha Mitchell) are trying to solve a murder and find a weapon that not only destroys the surrogate but also kills the operator.
Whilst the film can be criticised for following the most obvious path (like many modern U.S. genre films the plot can be deduced by simply looking at the cast list) it contains enough ideas and an involving enough side story involving Greer’s relationship with his wife to remain more than watchable. In addition, Greer’s surrogate, a young, coiffured, imperfection-free version of Mr Willis, contains the key to my disinterest in CGI fests like The Polar Express (2004) or the new Jim Carrey starring A Christmas Carol (2009) – it’s just not right.
Surrogates is in cinemas now.
For me the films main flaws are that I really don’t see the appeal of living your life through a surrogate and I really don’t see how the use of surrogates prevents people from committing crimes. Where the film fails in its execution is that it ducks every opportunity to say or do something interesting instead taking the clichéd path of least resistance. Caz @ Lets go to the movies made a good point that the almost superpowers the surrogates demonstrate in two scenes are really out of place as we don’t see them moving like that for the majority of the film. I found the film entertaining at times but the more I think about it the less I like it.
I see the appeal being the ability to become anyone, younger, stronger, better looking etc – something that is already happening to an extent in the way that people have found new lives / personalities in various online communities. The irony is that whilst everyone wants to be Tyler Durden a world full of Brad Pitt clones is a bit boring.
Regarding crime – I to had a bit of trouble with that aspect as people will still be hungry, poor, nasty etc and if anything one might expect violence to increase in a world with less consequence (note the football poster promising severed heads) – but then maybe those that love inflicting pain find kicking robot face unsatisfying.
I presumed the superpowers were something that, like touch, only certain models (i.e. police, sports) could do. My only problem was that Mostow didn’t provide a wow moment like in I, Robot (a brilliant film in my opinion that did often take the interesting route) to reveal them.
I like Surrogates and although it doesn’t get better with time I do think it becomes more interesting.
caught that Gameswipe – it really is great
that 50 Cent videogame really scared me