Tonight, Ed and I saw the movie Surrogates, which is a near-future sci-fi movie in which most people stay at home in comfortable chairs while sending their more attractive robot alter egos out to live life for them. It's kind of like if Second Life were the real world. It has Bruce Willis as a cop.It is not very like Minority Report in any particular, but the audience of people who would like one is probably near-identical to the audience of people who would like the other. It's a kind of sci-fi action movie that also has personal relationships in it.
I have found that I really like Bruce Willis in sci-fi movies. Maybe I like him in general and just don't realize it because I don't tend to watch the other kinds of movies he's in. But he's really very funny, attractive, and entertaining to watch. (They did well to choose him for this role, since he looks better when he's not prettied up - i.e., the man is more hunky than his robot double.)
I thought it was reasonably well done overall, so if you like this sort of thing, go see it or put it on your Netflix queue.
5 comments:
I hope Sally weighs in on this, but continuing my point about how the writers of the movie intentionally chose a slightly creepy marketing slogan, I think if I were REALLY marketing something like these Surrogates, I'd do something like,
"Safe. Strong. Beautiful. You."
I have in mind a TV ad where they reveal one word at a time, and the word "you" is bigger or otherwise more emphasized. I mean, if I were trying to market this, I'd want to make the user identify with the surrogate; my slogan would definitely include the idea that the surrogate is the user.
I like your idea, Ed.
Sally, Ed is referring to the fact that in the movie, the marketing slogan for the company that makes the clones is something like, "Real Life. Only Better."
Yeah, we already have "Real Life. Only Better." It's any movie in which Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have sex (or any of another million such things, take your pick). At best, that slogan would make me think that it's a variant on Second Life. I agree with Ed that the selling point here is the idea that the surrogate really is you.
Looking at the photos of Bruce Willis's surrogate, my first thoughts were:
(1) Who's that guy?
and
(2) Wait, Bruce Willis is playing Ken in a Barbie movie?
You can tell they are robots, just look at the fake hair. That is the dorkiest toupee I have ever seen.
I keep getting this "Al Gore circa 1998 died his hair and eyebrows blond" vibe off of Willis in this shot. I'm not sure what it is, maybe the posture?
The picture is interesting. The surrogates in the movie do not, for the most part, look as stiff as they do there.
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