Technology will always be there to help the human race achieve goals faster and to boost production of products which, in turn, will make our lives more efficient and easier to live. However, as with every positive, there is always a down side, and even with something technical that can make one’s life easier and better to live, there will always be something that is taken away.
In Surrogates, human beings replace themselves in everyday lives with robots. From the luxury of your own home, you can lie in a cyberspace-like computer, and send your look-alike, or not so look-alike, robot to work, to the store, even on a date or to a sports event, and experience the whole thing though your surrogate without ever having to change your clothes, take a shower or open your own door. Your life can be lived through a machine that will do your bidding. There is a small group of human beings who choose to live their lives as humans, and refuse to convert to the use of surrogates. Tom Greer (Bruce Willis) is a police officer, but since the majority of the population has turned to using surrogates to live their lives, crime rates have decreased dramatically, and crime has become a thing of the past. The creator of the surrogate technology is Canter (James Cromwell.) His son’s surrogate is zapped with an unknown piece of technology that is so powerful that it kills the human controlling the surrogate, the first murder in a very long time. Greer and his partner, Peters (Eadha Mitchell) are assigned to the case. They must find the killer and uncover who is behind the weapon that can destroy the surrogate technology.
This is not a science fiction film for kids. It has a lot of violence for a film involving robots, despite its PG-13 rating. There is not much blood, but some of the human characters are roughed up a bit, and in a few scenes in which humans are killed by having their surrogates zapped, there are some medium shots of their bloody heads covered by the equipment they use to control their surrogates. Most of the violence is action-related, and when the surrogates are shot, a green antifreeze-like substance comes from their wounds. If they are zapped, they fry out as any piece of electrical equipment would if overloaded with power.
The Blu-ray disc has a few special features. It contains one audio commentary track with director Johathan Mostow. There is a music video for the song, “I Will Not Bow,” by Breaking Benjamin. There are also two featurettes, A More Perfect You: The Science of Surrogates, a feature that takes you behind the technology and philosophy behind the film. The second feature is Breaking the Frame: A graphic novel come to life, which talks about the film and its comparison to the graphic novel, and bringing the story to life. The disc also contains deleted scenes and has English, Spanish SDK, and French subtitles.
The concept behind the film is excellent and it is a story in which the screen writers really bring to light how we rely on technology so much and let it consume our lives, that we forget what being human is all about. I applaud director Jonathan Mostow, who is no stranger to robots, having directed Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, for bringing us a film that sticks to the story and does not let up on the action and suspense. The visual effects are very good, yet they are not overdone to the point that things look fake. It’s a very well made film with a story that speaks volumes about our race. It’s a film that shows how much we get lazy when we let technology do all the work. The film also highlights other social issues, such as how we all want to be perfect. Every surrogate is dressed in the latest fashions, while the humans at home controlling them look nothing like their surrogates.
Surrogates is a very well written, well thought out science fiction film. It has a great plot that leaves the audience thinking about the film well after it is over. It makes us question our reliance on technology and how we become less human when we let to much of it consume us. We see it today with people constantly on their cell phones, children staying inside watching television and playing video games instead of going outside to play. This is a film that’s telling people to put down their devices, walk away from their televisions and computers and get out there and live. I highly recommend this film which speaks volumes about the human race and our reliance on technology.
– Horror Bob
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
