Surrogates

Surrogates

Directed by Jonathan Mostow
Written by John Brancato and Michael Ferris
Starring Bruce Willis and Radha Mitchell
Classification: PG

Imagine a world in which regular people lie around at home in their bathrobes and underwear, wired to electronic devices which allow them to watch their attractive, stylish robot surrogates living vicarious lives for them.

No, we're not talking about the pleasures of prime-time television, but a scary science-fiction movie, Surrogates , based on a comic book series by Robert Venditti and Brett Weldele.

In the world depicted in the movie, almost 90 per cent of people use robots to do their jobs and conduct their social lives, creating an outside world that is almost free of crime or racism or bad hair. Meanwhile, indoors, slug-like humans lie on beds, desperately in need of gym time and personal stylists. They are referred to as "biologicals" by the army, or "meat bags" by self-hating humans, talking through their surrogates.

A couple of FBI agents - played by Bruce Willis and Radha Mitchell - are assigned to investigate the murder of some surrogates, which (in a departure from the logic of the comic books) somehow also leads to the death of their human masters. Willis, as Agent Greer, in his surrogate mode wears a tailored suit, a Brüno -style blonde wig and a thick layer of orange face powder.

In his human form, he's bald and has a goatee and looks sad and anguished. That's because he's married to a gorgeous surrogate cosmetician, Maggie (Rosamund Pike), whose real self is a pill-popping depressive, in mourning for their dead son. Greer wishes his wife could just be her tired, blotchy self again, but she prefers to be youthful, pretty and plastic.

Sharing Greer's doubts about surrogacy are a band of rebel humans led by a man named The Prophet (Ving Rhames in Rasta dreads). The rebels have established robot-free shanty-towns where no surrogate wants to go alone at night.

Director Jonathan Mostow has been in this man-versus-machine territory before, with the half-decent Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines . But the science fiction aspect here is bait-and-switch - a provocative idea - followed by a formula action movie, with shootouts, helicopter chases and a digital counter before the solution.

There's no convincing explanation why people would commit fewer crimes if they had surrogates, or any clear idea about the reciprocal sensations between human and surrogate. Humans are supposed to have only one legal surrogate each, but not everyone plays by the rules. All human-to-surrogate signals are run through one central switchboard, monitored by a Jabba the Hutt-like FBI agent (Devin Ratray).

The only moderately piquant stroke here is the use of Boston - one of United States' oldest cities - as the hub of this new world, where everyone walking along the historic streets seems to have employed the services of a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon.

The questions the movie raises have less to do with science than movie execution: Do the actors sound so robotic because they are playing robots well or humans badly? And did a machine write this dialogue? If so, could we please apply for an upgrade?