The film's main concept centers on the mysterious murder of a college student linked to the man who helped create a high-tech surrogate phenomenon that allows people to purchase remote-controlled humanoid robots through which they interact with society. These fit, attractive, remotely controlled robots ultimately assume their life roles, enabling people to experience life vicariously from the comfort and safety of their own homes. Surrogates was released on September 25, 2009, in the United States and Canada.[4] It received mixed reviews from critics and grossed over $122 million.
Plot
In the near future, widespread use of remotely controlled androids called "surrogates" enables everyone to live in idealized forms from the safety of their homes. Compared to their surrogates, the human operators are depicted as slovenly and homebound. Protected from harm, a surrogate's operator feels no pain when their surrogate is damaged, and they can make their surrogate perform acrobatics beyond human capability. In Boston, FBI agent Tom Greer has been estranged from his wife Maggie since their son's death in a car crash several years before. He never sees her outside of her surrogate and she criticizes his desire to interact via their real bodies.
Tom and his partner, Agent Jennifer Peters, investigate the death of two people who were killed when their surrogates were destroyed at a Fort Point club. Jared Canter, one of the victims, is the son of Dr. Lionel Canter, the inventor of surrogates and the former head of their manufacturing company, Virtual Self Industries (VSI). The two determine that a human, Miles Strickland, used a new type of weapon to overload the surrogates' systems and kill their operators. After locating Strickland, Tom attempts to bring him into custody. Strickland uses the weapon and injures Tom during the chase; Tom inadvertently crash-lands into an anti-surrogate zone known as the Dread Reservation (one of many throughout the US). A mob helps Strickland and destroys Tom's surrogate. The Dread leader, a man known as the Prophet, kills Strickland and confiscates the weapon.
With his surrogate destroyed, Tom is forced to interact in the world without one. He learns that VSI originally produced the weapon, designed to load a virus that overloads a surrogate's systems, thus disabling it, under a government contract. Unexpectedly, the weapon also disabled the fail-safe protocols protecting operators. The project was promptly scrapped and all prototypes supposedly destroyed. Tom also learns that Andrew Stone, his FBI superior, supplied the weapon to Strickland and ordered Dr. Canter's assassination, upon VSI's request, for his criticism of surrogate use. Jared, who had, unbeknownst to the assassin, been using one of his father's many surrogates, was killed instead. An unknown man murders Jennifer in her home and then hijacks her surrogate, and the Prophet orders the weapon delivered to her. During a military raid on the reservation, the Prophet is shot, revealing he was actually a surrogate, with audience learning that Canter himself was its operator. Tom steals the code that activates the weapon from Stone, but "Jennifer" escapes with the codes.
Immediately travelling to Canter's home, Tom discovers that Canter has been controlling not only the Prophet, but also Jennifer and the surrogate he used to kill Jennifer as well. Using Jennifer's surrogate in FBI Headquarters, Canter uses the weapon to kill Stone and proceeds to upload the virus to all surrogates, which will destroy them and kill their operators. Canter reveals that he only wanted to empower the disabled to live normal lives, but after he was fired from VSI, they capitalized on surrogacy for profit. Convinced his plan is unstoppable, Canter disconnects from Jennifer's surrogate and swallows a cyanide pill. Tom takes control of Jennifer's surrogate and, with the assistance of the network's system administrator, Bobby Saunders, insulates the virus so the operators will survive, but a second step is required to save the surrogates. After a moment of consideration, Tom chooses to let the virus permanently disable surrogates worldwide. With all the surrogates disabled, people emerge from their homes, confused and afraid.
Returning home, Tom shares an emotional embrace with Maggie in her real form. The film ends with an aerial view of the collapsed surrogates along with overlapping news reports of downed surrogates all over the world and how people are now "on their own" again.
Cast
Bruce Willis as Tom Greer, an FBI agent investigating the mysterious murder of a college student linked to the high-tech surrogate phenomenon.
Surrogates: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack was orchestrated by composer Richard Marvin. Surrogates is the fifth film on which director Jonathan Mostow and composer Richard Marvin have collaborated. Marvin recorded his score with the 120-piece Hollywood Studio Symphony. Although it was not featured in the soundtrack, the song "I Will Not Bow," performed by Breaking Benjamin, was played during the film's ending credits and the song's music video features footage from the film. The soundtrack was released on November 23, 2009.[22]
Surrogates hosted its world premiere at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, California on September 24, 2009. It was released the next day in North American cinemas by Touchstone Pictures to lukewarm reviews from film critics.
Rating
The Motion Picture Association of America gave the film a PG-13 rating for "intense sequences of violence, disturbing images, language, sexuality and a drug-related scene."
Home media
The DVD and Blu-ray were released on January 26, 2010. The Blu-ray version features four deleted scenes, a commentary by director Jonathan Mostow, 2 featurettes, and an "I Will Not Bow" music video by Breaking Benjamin. The movie has sold 713,851 units, which gives it a total gross of $12,052,466 in DVD sales.[23]
Reception
Box office
Surrogates played at 2,992 theaters. On its opening weekend, it grossed to $14,902,692, averaging $5,050 per theater, ranking #2 at the U.S. box office, behind Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. For the second weekend of Oct 2–4, it saw a 45% decrease where it dropped down to 4th place at the box office only to gross $7,241,054. The third domestic weekend release saw a 36% decrease, which was 9% less than its last weekend. The film went on to gross $38,577,772 domestically and $83,867,000 internationally, giving it a worldwide gross of $122,444,772.[3]
Critical response
Surrogates was not pre-screened for critics.[24] As of June 2020[update], the review aggregatorRotten Tomatoes reported an approval rating of 37%, based on 115 reviews, and an average rating of 5.33/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Though it sports a slick look and feel, Surrogates fails to capitalize on a promising premise, relying instead on mindless action and a poor script".[25]Metacritic gave the film an average score of 45 out of 100 based on 21 critic reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[26] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C" on an A+ to F scale.[27]
IGN gave the film a 6.0/10, saying that "it provides a competently made, relatively predictable and slickly presented piece of genre entertainment, offering just the right amount of action beats and futuristic visuals to keep the viewer engaged without ever having an actual thought. It's good, escapist fun". Yahoo! Movies gave it a grade "C+" based on 10 reviews.[28]
Entertainment Weekly's Lisa Schwarzbaum concluded her positive review saying that "there's fun robot stuff, some good philosophical ideas, and a brief, nutty Willis–Ving Rhames reunion 15 years after Pulp Fiction".[29]Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 2½ stars out of 4. Ebert wrote that "while more ambitious than it has to be, the film descends into action scenes too quickly. ... Surrogates is entertaining and ingenious, but it settles too soon for formula." He also says, "The concept, based on a graphic novel by Robert Venditti and Brett Weldele, would lead naturally to intriguing considerations."[30] Some critics, however, were not too favorable to the film: Claudia Puig of USA Today called it "a poor substitute of sci-fi thriller saying that the tone of the movie is rarely satirical and that it's more concerned with political intrigue involving pockets of anti-surrogate protesters that enjoy bludgeoning the machines."[31] Roger Moore of the Orlando Sentinel gave it a negative review, writing "watchable, but obvious... Surrogates never manages to be anything more than a poor substitute for the real thing."[32]
Jordan Hoffman of UGO Entertainment gave Surrogates a B+ rating, saying it is intellectually stimulating enough to keep you intrigued while never forgetting its obligation as B movie fun.[33] Todd McCarthy of Variety described it as an intense and eerily plausible science fiction thriller.[34]
Some critics remarked that the plot has some similarities to David Brin's Kiln People.[35][36]
