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"1 1/2 stars"
by Lew Irwin
full review:
Critics appear to wish that the plot of Surrogates were as intriguing as its premise: it's about a time in which human beings can remain at home, where they can be hooked up to robots -- idealized versions of themselves -- that they not only can manipulate but experience their feelings as well. (When one of the robots is murdered, its human counterpart dies as well.) Bruce Willis plays both human (he's bald and craggy) and robot (he's blonde and smooth-skinned). Dan Kois in the Washington Post writes that the movie takes an interesting idea "and buries it under clumsy exposition, unconvincing action sequences and a by-the-numbers conspiracy plot." Robert Abele in the Los Angeles Times, while calling the movie "a slick sci-fi number," concludes that its "narrative and emotional engine operate as mechanically as the titular, dead-eyed glamazoids." Liam Lacey in the Toronto Globe and Mail asks, "Did a machine write this dialogue? If so, could we please apply for an upgrade?" Elizabeth Weitzman writes in the New York Daily News: "If robots had to make a movie without human help, Surrogates is what they might come up with." Manohla Dargis puts it even more succinctly in the New York Times, writing that the movie amounts to "industrial entertainment."
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