Imagine a world where people interact with each other only through machines. Wait, isn't that Twitter and Facebook? No, this goes beyond that. Advanced robotics, we're told at the beginning of "Surrogates," allow you to never leave the house. You control your own robot, or surrogate, from home. Supposedly this is a better way of life, although how, I'm not quite sure. You still have to eat. Why would you send a surrogate out to a nice restaurant for a fancy dinner? Or even to a fast-food chain?. We're told that because of surrogates, the world is so much better. People are happier, racism and sexism are disappearing, crime is down 98 percent. Except, early on, a large majority of the surrogates partying at a nightclub are white. That doesn't mean their owners are, but still...it doesn't match the message. Oh, and wars are still being fought...although they're now fought by surrogates. Plus there's a group of anti-surrogate people who have treaties with the government allowing them to have armed compounds where surrogates are banned. Sounds like a utopia to me.
Then a surrogate is struck down by an advanced weapon, and its owner, back at home, is found dead. Then it happens again. The FBI has to investigage the first murders in years, and Bruce Willis is one of the agents. He's ambivalent about the whole "surrogate" technology, though he uses it at first. Why his surrogate doesn't have better hair is beyond me. At least he doesn't bother with a hairpiece when he actually gets out and investigates on his own, without the robot. There are a few red herrings, the usual double-dealing, conspiracy theories, etc. and what happens in the end is fairly predictable, even if it doesn't entirely make sense (I can't say more about that without spoiling it). I hope the comic book series on which the movie is based was better. My grade: C-plus.
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