Surrogates

It would probably have been better if they hadn’t given away almost the whole movie in the first clip, but in any case I reasonably enjoyed myself. Some of it is seriously gourmet style (yep, the chase with the one-armed Bruce), but most of it was more like marzipan on an over-sweet cake. The story is clearly not fully thought through, even though I’m ready to believe that as a comic book it was at least 50% better. Also, I didn’t much like Mostow’s plastic vision. Did they all really have to look THAT artificial? (2009-12-12)

I was expecting a film in the style of I, Robot, offering an interesting story spiced up with great visuals, but I’m not as impressed with the final result. Jonathan Mostow is a skilled director, Terminator 3 has quality, but Surrogates didn’t blow me away. The idea is unconventional and quite refreshing, and in today’s film industry, I’m glad for every novel concept that comes along. But it's true that I wouldn’t classify the film's execution as above average. The plot was very weak, and from the start, it was predictable who the villain would be. With such a high budget, I expected a more A-list production, but some scenes felt more like B-movie quality (which I don’t understand, because a large amount of money was indeed poured into the film). Bruce Willis is the main highlight of the film; I enjoyed his dual role, and it was clear that he still fits into such roles. The other actors delivered passable performances as well. A few scenes were quite good (for example, the one with the helicopter), but overall, not much stuck with me. It had higher potential. 67%. (2017-10-25)

I like positive sci-fi and because the genre has received a nice beating from fantasy in the last two decades, and pure sci-fi films are currently quite rare. I should thus appreciate any film not teeming with wizards, elves, dragons, or mythical powers. Unfortunately, a lot more is needed for a quality experience and one of the fundamental things I insist on is for the fantastic world to be logical and fully functional within its system. Unfortunately, Surrogates completely fails in this regard. Practically the whole film submits to the superficial spectacle with slick visuals, top-notch special effects, a star-studded cast, and an overall bombastic production. However, the screenplay is full of holes and I would have to completely turn off my brain for this spectacle to become bearable for me. Some films only take a part of their source material and forfeit deeper meaning, but if they function within their invented world, I have no major objections to a popcorn spectacle. But Mostow's world is built on nonsense. It is simply subservient to us watching flashy chases ending with a helicopter crash or robot surrogates jumping from one car to another. It is even more disappointing considering the involvement of several excellent actors and the wasted budget. Overall impression: 25%. (2010-04-30)

A proper fiasco. Bruce Willis is clearly bored and wasting his time on unsuccessful and rip-off sci-fi flicks. Jonathan Mostow completely failed, Rosamund Pike’s breasts are three sizes larger than her standard, which sticks out like a sore thumb on Surrogates, and overall, this colourful and non-contact fairy tale is just golden tinsel that hardly earned its keep. I recommend avoiding it completely. (2010-02-24)

I remembered the film from 2009 as pretty good sci-fi fun, so I wanted to recall it years later. Surrogates is a good movie, it just has trouble crossing over into the "better" movie category. Jonathan Mostow unfortunately isn't that experienced a director and didn’t have to climb the filmmaking ranks of other big names, and that's probably where the whole result stems from. For the kind of material he's working with here, he doesn’t the potential to its fullest, the concept of surrogates and the sci-fi world is so broad that it could have been worked into at least a two-hour feature or better yet a series; 85 minutes is definitely not enough to do that, it feels very abbreviated and straightforward, which on the one hand makes the film move quickly and doesn't get boring, but on the other hand it offers a feeling of incompleteness. That said, as an average action film for an undemanding viewer it works fine. (2023-01-04)