Surrogates

I like to imagine the Bruce Willis, director Jonathan Mostow and the producers of Mostow’s latest film, Surrogates, sitting around in Hollywood in the late summer of 2009. They knew that their sci-fi film about people who control surrogate bodies was about done. They also knew that the man who directed what was then the biggest film of all-time, James Cameron (Titanic), also had a film about surrogates coming out. 

I bet they laughed. They laughing because they knew what Cameron’s film was about - humans who operate alien surrogates in order to harvest resources from another planet. I bet they had a good chuckle at that premise. Still, though, I bet they also had conversations about how their surrogate sci-fi film had to come out before Cameron’s Avatar. Just in case. Better safe than sorry. Why not?  And all that stuff.

To see Bruce Willis’ surrogate’s face in this film is an instant hoot - the kind that makes you want to turn off the movie and go make a joke about what you just saw on Twitter. I know that he’s supposed to look artificial and futuristic, and I suppose he kind of does … but damn if he doesn’t look idiotic. Much of the design here, in fact, looks ridiculous (think Bicentennial Man), especially when you consider the production’s $80+ million dollar shooting budget. The only visuals that really work are the handful Mostow & Co. lift directly from Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner and Terry Gilliam’s Brazil - films made when the 48 year old Mostow was still a young lad in college.

I suspect that the Surrogates script was a hot topic in Hollywood for at least a week. I could even see studios fighting over it and C-list directors taking pay cuts. It’s not that the writing is that strong; but, rather, the concept of the story has all the makings of a possible new sci-fi classic. The story is actually quite simple: humans all stay home in the future, opting to lay in a bed hooked up to a machine that operates a remote surrogate being who is out in the world, living for them. These surrogates work, go to meetings, drive cars, go to clubs, hook up with other surrogates, do drugs (okay, they shock themselves with some weird blue device) and so on. If something bad happens to your surrogate you just simply unconnected and you’re fine - laying in your bed with, at most, a bead of sweat on your brow. In fact, no matter what, in theory, you can’t be harmed while hooked up to a surrogate. That is, until two people end up “getting their brains fried” while logged in. And that’s where our story begins.

Should be good, right? I thought so. Our hero FBI agent, played by who other than Bruce Willis (who has played a lawman in at least 20 films), decides to leave his safe surrogate lifestyle behind, hitting the streets himself. (What really happens is that some anti-surrogate rebels smash his surrogate and, being stubborn, Willis decides to "rought it" in the real world, rather than opting for a quicking surrogate replacement.) While much of the editing and camera work is certainly top-shelf action fare and the story works somewhat well, there are endless problems with the production. And I’m not just talking about the ridiculous looking surrogates. I’m talking about the filmmaking. How this pathetic Mostow guy ever scored a job as a big budget film director is beyond me.

One of the most important elements of sci-fi filmmaking (especially when dealing with a future context) is the world you create on screen. There’s a very important job here for the filmmaker, and that is to more or less predict what the future will be like. Both Gilliam and Scott proved themselves masters with their films, and others (Michael Winterbottom with Code 46; Alfonso Cuaron with Children of Men; Andrew Niccol with Gattaca, etc.) have also done well. Mostow’s work is lazy. Sure, he throws in big, bright, expensive flourishes here and there (mostly with the robots), but, otherwise, his set design is awful. The cars look like the cars on the street right now, as do the buildings, roads, dumpsters - you name it. We have the technology to create millions of highly complex, affordable and lifelike robots but we are still driving 2005 Chevy Malibus and engaging in foot soldier warfare? We still wear Levis and goatees?! What the fuck! The year 2060 is going to look just like 2006, but with cool robots and stuff? Huh!

Ugh. Enough of that. Another big gripe as far as production goes is Mostow’s decision to toy with camp. While I'm sure many would likely disagree with me, I tend to think that pulling off good camp - especially in an otherwise mostly serious film - is a very hard thing to do, and almost never a smart one. Alex Cox pulled it off with Repo Man and John Carpenter is the master of this particular craft. Sam Raimi is also often great, though he only uses the device in a surreal, absurdist way.

Mostow’s treatment reminds most of Repo Man, one of the best films of the 1980s. And while I can’t quite explain why Repo Man (or even the recent District 9) works so well and Surrogates doesn’t, I do know how it could’ve worked better. Character development - the root of any good film. Mostow offers us a few minutes here and there for the Willis character, but nothing too meaty. We don’t get to know any of these people, which thus makes us relate to them in the most pedestrian way. And, well, that just doesn’t work when you also have big moments of camp spread throughout your film. Not at all. We need weird, bizarre characters to create the weirdo/otherwordly effect.

I could go on, telling you about the storyline and conflict and blah, blah, blah … but, instead, will opt to brings things back around to Cameron’s shitty Avatar film. I consider both Surrogates and Dances With Blue Men to be failures, but, if forced to chose, would have to list Surrogates as the bigger disapointment. The premise was good and Willis was a good choice for the lead. The budget was big enough to get the job done. Mostow, who also directed Terminator 3, U-571, Breakdown and Beverly Hills Bodysnatchers, is just a shitty director, not worthy of good actors, big budgets and strong scripts. I hope he never makes another film.   3/10

Written by G. William Locke