By Shanda Block/entertainment editor
It isn’t really a new or radical idea — robot-like beings as a part of the human race, but the new movie Surrogates has a few interesting concepts.
Not too far into the future, humans lie on what looks like an operating table with wires basically 24/7. With their minds, they can control these idealistic robots or surrogates that can either represent what they really look like or can be as flawless and “perfect” as the user wishes.
That may sound absurd, but the point of doing this is so humans can live however they want without fear of harm. For example, the user’s surrogate can be in a plane crash and escape unharmed. Therefore, with the ability to do what the heart desires, crime rates go down on the planet 99 percent.
However, every utopian idea has something to destroy it.
Surrogates can withstand anything, right? Wrong. Shortly into the movie, a man appears out of nowhere on a motorcycle and kills two surrogates. But not only does he succeed in killing these robots, he also kills the users of the two surrogates.
From there, the plot unfolds further as FBI Agent Thomas Greer (Bruce Willis) investigates the story behind a similar murder of the surrogate of Lionel Canter’s (James Cromwell) son.
The audience learns how extreme these killings are becoming by soon finding out that Canter created surrogate technology.
Then, in a complicated turn of events, Greer realizes to catch this murderer, he will have to do the “unthinkable” for this twisted world: leave his home in his human form rather than his surrogate.
Along the way, he has help from another agent, Jennifer Peters (Radha Mitchell). The two hunt down this surrogate/user killer to an area of the city where no robots may enter.
This movie also contains a strange character called “The Prophet,” who preaches that surrogates are a horrible invention and should not ever exist.
Overall, this movie, based on Robert Venditti and Brett Weldele’s graphic novel, was interesting and somewhat creative. Although the idea of robots being a huge part of human lives isn’t too original, Surrogates is worth the ticket price.
