BEFORE: The concept of people controlling artificial bodies carries over from "Avatar", and Birthday SHOUT-out #21 goes out to Bruce Willis, born 3/19/55, and last seen in "Live Free or Die Hard". Linking from last night, Sigourney Weaver was in "Working Girl" with Melanie Griffith, who was in "The Bonfire of the Vanities" with Bruce Willis. Bingo Bango.
THE PLOT: Set in a futuristic world where humans live in isolation and interact through surrogate robots, a cop is forced to leave his home for the first time in years in order to investigate the murders of others' surrogates.
AFTER: I sort of get where they were going with this one, and at first the futuristic concept of people living through artificial bodies seems kind of cool, and perhaps a logical extension of today's on-line tele-commuting and social networking. But virtual reality is like flying cars - it's a neat and easy element of futurama, but I don't know if it will ever actually arrive. Carmakers seem to have gotten distracted with hybrid technology and gas mileage, and they just haven't been watching enough sci-fi movies.
Assuming that people could someday project their consciousness into artificial robot bodies, I sort of see some of the benefits - they could put the best possible image of themselves out into the world, the youngest, best-looking version of themselves. And I concede that this might cut out disease (no pesky germs from handshakes or subway poles), but how would that cut down on crime? The movie claims that the use of surrogates has reduced crime drastically - so why is there still a fully-staffed police force and an FBI? Couldn't people just use their surrogates to commit crimes more easily - no fingerprints, no DNA left behind - and don't people still want to steal money in the future, to buy themselves better surrogates?
Then we've got the other problem - people's physical bodies are left in a room somewhere, in this virtual-projection chamber that looks like a tanning booth. Doesn't that body need to eat? (Note: this was a problem that "Avatar" addressed, but only briefly) And umm...go to the bathroom? (Note: this was a problem that "Avatar" did NOT address, perhaps that should be a point off its score) And what's the point of sending your surrogate out to have virtual sexy-time with another surrogate if a person can't physically feel it back in their chamber? (Or, do they? The film never addresses this either.)
It's a little interesting to see people in surrogate bodies, but also a little confusing when people start surrogate-hopping and look nothing like the person they actually are. I might have liked to see a little more difference between a person and their surrogate - if someone were horribly scarred or disfigured, it would make sense to use a surrogate. Bruce Willis' character's surrogate has hair, for example - but don't they have better toupees or hair plugs in the future? Most often in this film people just seem to use surrogates because they're lazy or don't want to clean themselves up - I just don't see that the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.
If you want to project yourself into a surrogate to go surfing in Hawaii, obviously you reduce risk of dying from a surfing accident, but you miss out on the experience of being in Hawaii. So I'm not seeing it. Surrogate soldiers, sure - but day-to-day living, no way.
I will award points, however - for some great action/chase scenes, with surrogate police models displaying super-human jumping and agility. And car chases have a different flavor when cars can mow down people on the street, since the drivers are aware they're only harming robot bodies.
But the conspiracy-plot was extremely confusing. It was hard to tell who did what, and why.
Also starring Radha Mitchell (last seen in "Finding Neverland"), Ving Rhames (last seen in "Mission: Impossible III"), James Cromwell (last seen in "The Sum of All Fears").
RATING: 5 out of 10 metal-detectors
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