Surrogates (PG-13) (2009)

The premise of this latest sci-fi flick from Bruce Willis is intriguing, but shortly after that, the movie falls flat. Set in the near future, it is a world in which almost everyone lives through a surrogate and leaves their flawed, aging body at home in solitude. No one knows exactly who anyone really is as they all don young, attractive personas. Life becomes an extension of today’s deceptive internet identities. Now they are able to interact in the huge chat room of Life using sophisticated robot technology.
    Agent Greer of the FBI (Bruce Willis) realizes the disconnect associated with living through surrogates rather than in the real world. In order to solve a troubling murder case, he ventures out “in the flesh” to investigate the crime and uncovers a conspiracy much larger than he expected.
    Running at right around an hour and a half, this weak attempt at glimpsing into the future of mankind is tedious and not as clever as the trailers led us to believe. The film might have been more enjoyable had I sent a surrogate to sit through it while I did something else. Sometimes vicarious is better.