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Surrogates
Back in the 1970's Charleton Heston was the "go-to" guy for these kind of science fiction films--"Soylent Green", "The Omega Man", "Planet of the Apes". Today the go to guy is Bruce Willis.
"Surrogates" is a world in the not too distant future where people use surrogate bodies to live their normal lives while they sit back in their apartments and experience everything--sex, pleasure, excitement, but no pain--through their surrogates, manufactured to their exact specifications. It's a world where everyone is beautiful.
Bruce Willis plays Tom Greer, a FBI agent who investigates when the death of a surrogate seems to cause the death of its operator, many miles away. The operator turns out not to be just anybody but the son of surrogate inventor Cantor (James Cromwell). Greer and his partner Peters (Rhadha Mitchell!) investigate the surrogate company where the surrogates were first developed to help the crippled and paralyzed war veterans to live normal, active lives like everyone else.
His trail leads to a part of town closed off to surrogates where only natural humans live, in a life of squalor. Ving Rhames plays The Prophet, a powerful spokesperson for the anti-surrogate crowd.
Is it real or is it surrogate?
The script bogs down Willis with a wife who is addicted to using surrogates and a dead son that they are both tortured by, but otherwise its a pretty standard story about mad scientists, technology out of control and how its up to one man to try and put things right.
No, some of it doesn't make sense. In the words of Mr. Spock, it is not logical. However the concept is interesting enough and Willis is charismatic enough to keep me watching. Has he done better? Yes. Has he done worse? Also yes. And while "Surrogates" kept my attention throughout, don't expect to see it on the DVD shelf at my house. Once is enough.
One Unanswered Question
The one thing I can't figure out is if in this world they can make perfect bodies and perfect surrogates for people to inhabit, how come they can't make Bruce Willis a decent hairpiece? I always wondered that about the 23rd century and Captain Pikard on "Star Trek". All these technical innovations, yet so very little progress on the hairpiece front.
