'Surrogates'

'Surrogates' (PG-13) * 1/2

Writers: Michael Ferris, John D. Brancato
Director: Jonathan Mostow
Starring: Bruce Willis, Radha Mitchell, Rosamund Pike, Ving Rhames, James Cromwell

There is good Bruce Willis and there is indifferent sleepwalking Bruce Willis. There is very intriguing and exciting science fiction movies and laughable and dull ones. The Bruce Willis in "Surrogates" looks like he is bored, indifferent and like he is having a miserable time. I like the alive, powerful and energetic Bruce Willis. Willis is a star simply because he has a great screen presence, seems amused at the material he is presented and always is alive and charismatic. Here Willis seems like he is going through the motions and he is not helped by a ridiculous story and wooden dialogue and characters. Why do most science fiction films seem somber, brainy and dull? Science fiction films can be fun as witnessed by the very entertaining reboot of "Star Trek" earlier this year. My favorite one is "12 Monkeys" which was complicated, had a great story that made you think but it was fun and Willis seemed alive. My least favorite is David Lynch's "Dune" because that was stiff, laughable, lifeless and one of the ugliest movies I have ever seen. "Surrogates" falls to the latter because it is dull with unintentionally funny moments, wooden dialogue which leads to bad acting and an ending I saw coming from a mile away. This movie reminded me of the very cheesy sci-fi howler "Looker" from 1982 with Albert Finney and Susan Dey which was so bad it was good. "Surrogates" is just plain bad and it is a shame because very good talent was involved.