Surrogates explores the idea of tele-presence taken to the extreme. Its bleak vision of a future where people no longer interact or go anywhere for fear of getting hurt, but instead send out powerful androids controlled remotely through a virtual reality interface, is a frightening reflection of our growing fearfulness as a society. It is a trap that we as a people could all too easily fall into.
While I really like the depiction of the technology in this film, and the way that it highlights some potential problems with this type of technology, I do not like the one sided view this story portrays. It only explores the bad parts of the new society, not the beneficial parts.
The plot of this movie is that after society embraces surrogates for safety reasons someone is murdered by a virus uploaded to their surrogate that kills the operator. The action follows a FBI agent named Tom Greer, who is investigating the case. While investigating his surrogate is destroyed by anti-surrogate activists forcing him to carry on in real life. In the course of the investigation Greer reconnects with the real world and realizes how hollow his existence has been. In the end it turns out that the virus was created by the same man who made the surrogate technology. He now feels that it is being used incorrectly, and has decided to undo the damage he has done by destroying all surrogates and their operators. The climax of the movie is that this man uploads the virus to every surrogate, and Greer must find a way to halt it. In the end Greer opts to let the virus destroy all surrogates, but boots all users before they can be killed.
This movie was entertaining, but it could have been a lot better, and the ending was terrible. I would have liked to get a more complete picture of the effects of the technology on society. This movie will likely only appeal the science fiction, and crime drama fans. The action is ok, but takes a back seat to the investigation. It is basically a cop movie with a science fiction twist.
This movie is available at www.amazon.com on disk or streaming as a rental or purchase.
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