Once again, in full discretion, the passes for Surrogates were provided to me by the fine staff at b.

How can a great concept go so wrong?

On paper, it sounds super intriguing.  In a society where humankind has become complacent with using robot surrogates to fufill all aspects of their lives, while they themselves control said robots from home, what happens when the first murder in years occurs, and it’s the son of the man who created these “Surrogates?“  Add the cherry on top of a very bankable star in Bruce Willis, it should be an out-of-the-park home run.

Unfortunately for Willis and Disney (who produced the film under their Touchstone Pictures imprint), Surrogates is anything but.  It’s a muddied mess of a film, with plotlines picked up, dropped, ignored, as the audience slowly rolls to the finish line, it what is possibly the most irritating 90 minutes to hit screens in some time.

Actually, I take that back…there have been worse films. But none of them had the potential that Surrogates did.

Look at the interesting plotlines used up and pissed away during the movie.

-A frank look at a relationship where a wife is committed to her timeless body, as her husband, who uses a surrogate for his day job, wants nothing more than to enjoy life and old age with her.  Sure, we get about 20 minutes of the setup, but they never actually address the issues in the relationship, giving Willis a scene that could’ve been heartbreaking, if we were made to give a damn.

-A battle between the society which uses surrogates, and the “Dreads”, a group of naturalist humans, dedicated to living without technology.  That would’ve been amazing, but then they had to go and make their leader, named (I kid you not) “The Prophet.” It’s a shame he never gets to explain what exactly he’s prophesying, as you know, that’d be some DEPTH to the flick.  Luckily, this gets muddied up in the climax, with a reveal that serves only to shock, as it ultimately makes the plot fall into itself.

-A story of conspiracy within VSI, the creators of the Surrogates. Again, a plotline that is mentioned, hinted at, and ignored as it gets in the way of the “action packed” ending.

-A tale of the ultimate weapon, which with one blast not only fries the circuitry of a Surrogate, but also kills the human controlling on the other site.  This is what the movie builds around, but I ultimately struggle to find the drama, as the damn gun looks like a dollar store shop vac with a plastic planter glued to the front.  I guess all the effects budget had to go towards airbrushing Willis' face with CG when he’s in robot-mode?

Hell, even the acting is inconsistent, with some actors going “full robot” with odd walking patterns, no emotion and no blinking, while some start to use those rules and ignore them during their dialogue. Where the FUCK was the direction on this thing?  And before I forget, can we hire someone other than James Cromwell to play the inventor of some sort of technology?

You know, part of me walked out of this film wanting the movie to have been longer, to get the depth each of the above plot threads needed. But now that I think about it, I wouldn’t have trusted them to not screw that up too.

Sorry Bruce, I wanted to dig Surrogates, but it’s just terrible. Don’t waste your money or time.