Surrogates

Wow, look at the new Robo-digs, huh? Nice, clean black with the logo on top. Very pretty. Don't get me wrong, I'll always look back on the pea soup green days with a wistful tear in my eye. But progress is progress.

I'm getting sidetracked. What did I want to talk about today?

AH YES! Surrogates.

Not like surrogate mothers (although did you hear about the couple that tried to do the test tube baby thing only to find out that the doctor knocked her up with the wrong sperm? How messed up is that?)

No, like the movie starring Bruce Willis and, eh, some other people. Ving Rhames, the farmer from Babe, then a bunch of actors I've never seen before.

Quick synopsis for you, courtesy of the IMDB: "Set in a futuristic world where humans live in isolation and interact through surrogate robots, a cop (Willis) is forced to leave his home for the first time in years in order to investigate the murders of others’ surrogates."

Basically, instead of people walking around and having to actually do things for themselves, they sit in a chair and operate / inhabit these surrogate robot things, which basically allow them to live their lives without leaving their home. And then, if your surrogate gets killed or something, you can just get another surrogate robot thingy and it's like a do over.

It's a lazy man's paradise.

Rotten Tomatoes currently gives it a 35% suck percentage, which is a little harsh I think. The movie, it mean, it was popcorn: you go, you watch the explosions, the premise is kind of cool, the script isn't anything fantastic but overall you have a good time.

There's nothing wrong with that. Not every movie can be brilliant. And yeah, I realize there's supposed to be a none-too-subtle message about how people need to stop spending so much time on their goddamn Nintendo machines and more time actually talking to people and blah blah blah. But whatever. Mostly, I came away from the movie thinking about what I would do if I had a surrogate.

Pretty much everything I came up with involved leaping off of bridges or holding up banks or doing various inappropriate things in public. This should surprise no one.