Movie review: ‘Surrogates’

Surrogates" is itself a surrogate, a kind of stand-in for many of the sci-fi movies of the recent past: In it, you'll recognize the ideas of "Blade Runner," "Minority Report" and even "WALL-E."

The Bruce Willis action flick opens with two murders -- the first in years in a quasi-present day Boston. Technology has advanced enough so that nearly everyone has a surrogate -- or "surry" for short. While reclining at home and plugged into a machine, people control a robotic version of themselves that safely maneuvers through the world with all of its slings and arrows.

The surrogates are a fantasy version of one's self -- cosmetically perfect, thinner, younger and sometimes of the opposite sex. (This means, most importantly, that we have a blond Bruce Willis on our hands.)

Willis is an FBI agent named Greer who, along with his partner (Radha Mitchell), is trying to solve the murders that, though committed on surrogates, also "liquefied" the brains of their human operators.

The police, too, have surrogates. When Greer -- himself, not his doppelganger -- rolls out of his bedroom after a long night as himself, the attractive surrogate of his wife (Rosamund Pike) sighs at the sight of her bald and wrinkly husband.

The surrogates are a clear metaphor for the virtual reality that's already upon us.

Having a robotic stand-in has some obvious perks. But this crime-less utopia is also a superficial wasteland, devoid of meaningfulness. As the investigation into the murders goes deeper, a plot to destroy the network becomes unfurled.

It has something to do with VSI, the company that created surrogates. (Its slogan: "Life . . . only better.") One of the founders of VSI (James Cromwell) is having inventor's remorse. Some also choose to live in human-only areas; the leader of these renegades is played by a dreadlocked Ving Rhames.

"Surrogates," directed by Jonathan Mostow ("Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines"), is adapted from a graphic novel by Robert Venditti.

Like those hard-boiled novels of the'40s that Hollywood couldn't get enough of, graphic novels are fueling what once would have been called B-movies. At its best, that's what "Surrogates" is: a quality B-movie, pulpy and very much reflective of its times. The film isn't shy about its feelings about technology -- it's time to unplug.