10 Films That Utterly Wasted Their Genius Premise

By Edward Owen /

3. Surrogates

Surrogates was fantastic insofar as it took an idea which affects society at the moment €“ living vicariously through technology €“ and took it to its logical conclusion, replacing internet avatars with real, electrical bodies. The world itself was extremely well realised, and made a good job of showing Bruce Willis€™ alienation with what society has become after he discards his surrogate. I really wanted to explore this world and what the ramifications of widespread surrogates would be upon society. Yet we only get to see snippets €“ an army base, a nightclub, a novelty shop €“ instead focusing on a whodunnit mystery which gradually evolves into an end-of-the-world scenario. Don€™t get me wrong, I love films that threaten an Armageddon but here I think it just cheapens the concept, creating grand scale for grand scale€™s sake. When we€™re faced with an interesting world such as this, sticking a formulaic conspiracy at the heart of what could have been a genius film makes it dance further into mediocrity. The most annoying thing is that there was already a perfectly good film rolling along in the background €“ that of Willis and his wife, the sadly overlooked Rosamund Pike, coming to terms with their son€™s death. Both react in interesting, human ways to the technology in light of this €“ Pike lets the technology consume her, Willis becomes steadily more detached. It would have been great to let that story breathe beyond the cursory glance the script provides for it.