Surrogates

Surrogates
Director: Jonathan Mostow
98 minutes
2.39:1

Jonathan Mostow does not have a perfect batting score when it comes to directing movies but Surrogates will certainly improve it.

Based on a graphic novel, Surrogates paints the world as being populated by super robots, called surrogates, while their human controllers stay at home. Then one day, two surrogates got killed and so did their human, a crime unheard of in 15 years.

There are obvious flaws in the storytelling - the accelerated time line of surrogate adoption as well as the rushed ending - but Surrogates hold up as a good entry in sci fi. Writers Michael Ferris and John D. Brancato retain the essential parts from Robert Venditti and Brett Weldele's graphic novel to tell a thrilling story of the evolution of technology. Mostow made the story credible, exciting and relevant.

The cast is uniformly great. The ones that got the most breadth are Bruce Willis and Rosamund Pike as the Greers and James Cromwell as Canter as they represent the cracks underneath the veneer of human liberation. Most of the VFX are seamless except for Willis' surrogates, which was intentionally plasticized.

Breakdown, a white-knuckle ride from start to finish, is still Mostow's best movie. But Surrogates is still commendable because it asks the right questions about the use of human substitutes and what it could mean for civilization.