Short Take: There's much more to it beyond first glance

Director: Jonathon Mostow

Screenwriters: Michael Ferris and John Brancato (The Net, Terminator Salvation)

Cast: Bruce Willis (Live Free or Die Hard), Ving Rhames (M-I:III), Rosamund Pike (Pride and Prejudice), Radha Mitchell (Melinda and Melinda, Silent Hill)

Length: 1h 28m

Synopsis: Set in the future when most Americans, and over 1 billion people worldwide, live their lives by using advanced puppet-like robots called surrogates that allow them to experience the world from the safety of their own homes. Small groups of people are adamantly against the use of surrogates, claiming that doing so robs people of their humanity because experiences are no longer the peoples’, but their robots’. Things get complicated when one of these surrogate-less groups, led by a spiritualist known as The Prophet (Rhames), gets their hands on a weapon that is capable of killing someone through their surrogate. The weapon becomes the key in a web of mysteries that will determine the future of surrogates, as well as the people who use them.

Analysis: The film’s biggest message is its obvious social criticism of current telecommunication technologies and how we as their users are becoming too disconnected (pardon the pun) from each other because of them. This criticism would have been blatantly obvious if only left to be read from the story’s premise, but that the movie deals with this issue directly throughout its narrative makes it so inescapably unambiguous that one can justifiably scream “overkill!” while leaving the theater. This should not be considered a denigration, though, but merely an observation of the level of earnestness the story has with the topic. Whether one agrees or disagrees with the film’s stance that genuine human interaction is on a dangerous decline, we are left to wonder why director Mostow and source writers Robert Venditti and Brett Weldele (graphic novel series) speak so passionately about such a concept.

One of the more interesting things about the film is that it makes a surprisingly strong case for the use of surrogates. These arguments (which include military use to eliminate soldier casualties, cutting down on crime and disease, and removing all risk from strenuous physical activity) only exist to create a balance that keeps the film from outright preaching, but that the points brought up can be considered legitimate makes the world in question much more complex, and in turn much more philosophically rich. Is it better to live life via a robot that looks as attractive as you wish you were, and is able to avoid most major detractors of living in the flesh (such as being susceptible to accidents, fatigue, and physical disability)?; or is the feeling of raw experience worth being so vulnerable?

One school of study that proves exceptionally relevant to Surrogates‘ main issue is that of phenomenology. Philosopher Maurice Merlaeu-Ponty, whose most famous work is tied to this field of study, wrote that, “Our body is the general medium of how we have the world” (Phenomenology of Perception). He was convinced that human consciousness was connected to but nevertheless mutually exclusive from the bodily senses. The senses function to collectively create a single perception of the world around us, which is then provided to our intellectual consciousness which then interprets and analyzes that perception. One of the biggest knots in this line of thinking is that at times our senses are not always reliable (whether because they’re corrupted by drugs, for example, or we happen to be dreaming). We can perceive experiences in our dreams, but we don’t actually have them. Is this scenario comparable to the instances involving those in Surrogates who live life through robots? Merleau-Ponty believed that our bodies, as instruments of perception, allow us to be involved in existence, not just existent. So then, if one “experiences” life through a robot – and thus does not rely on their own senses, and thus not their own perceptions – are they no longer involved in existence? Are they as passively receptive as those in the process of dreaming? These and many other questions make Surrogates a particularly dense film, but not to the extent that what it wants to say is muddled or vague. On the contrary, if anything it is clear as crystal. And to its credit it provides enough of an internal debate that we the audience are still afforded the chance to decide for ourselves which side of the argument to consent with.

Rating: 7.5