Hollywood has given roles to an actor because he or she has proven that his star power can draw fans into the movie, that power is usually enough to draw people into paying for what they believe is going to be a power house movie, but tends to be more and more just trite, loud action. In "Surrogates" we get the star power, we get the action, but we get nothing else. The plot is weak, far fetched and silly. As a movie to watch just for the fun of it Surrogates works, the sci-fi aspect is one that has been done to death, most recently in I, Robot. In Surrogates the robots are doing the work that people would normally do, but this time they have people controlling them, and if something happens to the surrogates the people are supposed to be protected, of course that isn't actually the truth.
When two surrogates are shot down in the street, with a new laser weapon nothing is different except that one surrogate is unregistered and the owners are found dead. When it is revealed that the owner of the unregistered surrogate, Cantor (James Francis Ginty) is the son of the creator of the surrogates Older Cantor (James Cromwell). Detective Tom Greer (Bruce Willis) is assigned to the case. He is an old veteran and along with his partner Peters (Radha Mitchell) they try to speak with Old cantor but are forced to speak to one of his many surrogates. The interview ends abruptly and the two detectives leave.
The case becomes a little more dangerous when the police get a lead on the suspect and trap him in an area where surrogates are not allowed to go. It seems that a band of humans who refuse to accept to use a surrogate have formed areas where no surrogate can travel, the suspect leads Det. Greer, who is a surrogate himself, into this area after he used the weapon on several police officers who were surrogates, killing them all. The humans don't take lightly the surrogate coming into their area and they band together and kill it. The real Det. Greer, who has not been out in the world for several months has to go into this area to find the suspect. This area is lead by The Prophet (Ving Rhames) and they don't want Greer coming onto their property either, they make this clear when they beat him senseless.
Of course the movie has a quick pace to it, the man behind the weapon is revealed rather quick, but who gave it to him remains a mystery until near the end. The reason is rather silly but it seems to work for this movie, viewers are not ask to think outside the box here, truthfully they are not asked to think at all. The plot rolls along and when another surrogate is used to get to the ultimate goal of the man behind the plot, it should become rather obvious who it is. The ending is trite and is somewhat laughable, the good guy wins the bad guy thinks he has the upper hand and takes his own life, but at the last second Greer takes control and decides that the mans original plan may not be such a bad idea after all. The fact that he does allow to happen one of the parts of the mans plan to rid the world of surrogates is rather funny, a man of the law taking the law into his own hands, if he had done this earlier in the movie maybe it would have been good. Boris Kodjoe is wasted as the boss of the unit that Greer is a part of, he has screen time but his character is implausible and goofy.
I give Surrogates a 2 and on my avoidance scale a 1, wait a few months for this one, it won't be around for very long and you can sit back and take your time to see this one, it really has nothing to offer except some pretty decent special effects and CGI. Surrogates can be watched one time and then can join the rest of the DVD's that you regret buying.
Surrogates is rated PG-13 for Sequences of Violence, Disturbing Images, Language, Sexuality and a Drug-Related Scene
Running time is 1 hr. 44 mins.
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