It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Surrogates has a very interesting premise, but it doesn't seem to go anywhere. Even the twists and turns are fairly mundane. In the end, it was a fun ride, but this movie is ultimately forgettable.

Surrogates is a thought-provoking, generally well made sci-fi movie. There was a little too much action for my taste and I didn't get how people who were connected to their surrogates almost 24/7 still had functioning bodies at all, or how they performed basic functions, but the main concept was intriguing.In a world where you look however you want and never get hurt, who would ever use their real body? What is the point? In doing so, are you losing a large portion of what makes you human? The movie asks these questions and others.It started really well for me, as it presented an evolution to the current state of the world. It was progressive, we didn't just get 'bam, this is how things are, doesn't matter how it got here'.The development of the story was OK, it felt the pacing was off a bit at times. I thought the concept and its consequences was so powerful that it could have been better executed – all the action and superhero stuff only got in the way. Still, I appreciated the main characters, their struggles and their development. I particularly enjoyed the anxiety experienced by the main character when going out to the world for the first time in years. All the cool effects were a welcome bonus. That flawless skin… Wowza. How the heck did they do that??Besides the amazing imagery and all the action, Surrogates had suspense, mystery and interesting plot twists, so I recommend it.

Yeah, I know, Bruce Willis may be a bit past his sell-by date. He's hardly the box office draw he once was. And, yes, he does tend to exhibit a noticeable sneer/smirk throughout most of his most recent roles, but give him a chance here. He's not so bad.Surrogates set in the future when we all have robots to carry out our menial chores – all of apart from wise-cracking cop, played by Will Smith, who is hell-bent on proving that our robot 'protectors' are not what they seem. Oh, wait, that's not the plot for Surrogates at all – that's the plot for 'I Robot.' Never mind – just take out the word 'robots' and replace it with, er, 'surrogates' (which are basically robots) and you have the storyline.If you haven't seen I Robot, Surrogates may be quite original, but I couldn't believe how similar the two were. But I still enjoyed it. I put in my review title that it was a competent LITTLE sci-fi number. That's largely because it's quite short for a film – coming in well below the average hour and a half. And, because of this, it's over pretty quickly, almost like a TV episode of some sci-fi show.It has action, conspiracy, reasonably special effects and Bruce Willis isn't that annoying. In fact, his – how should I put this – 'mature' action hero status actually works here. The human race all have (surrogate) robots shaped like them who go out into the world under their human master's control. Naturally, everyone's surrogate is young and gorgeous while their human owner's body gets older and flabby from the comfort of their home. It's quite amusing when Bruce's beautiful bot gets beaten up and the 'real' human Bruce has to go out onto the streets with his bald head and wrinkles for all to see.All of this means that if you're a fan of the sci-fi genre you should get something out of this film. It's one of those films that you like more if you haven't had to pay for. If you can borrow it off a mate or find it as part of your online TV package, give it a go. It will definitely kill just over an hour of your time, but you probably wouldn't have wanted to pay full price in the cinema to see it. Oh, and it's also advisable not to watch I Robot before you see this (it's definitely superior – sorry, Bruce).

Expensive but dull, sterile sci-fi adaptation of the graphic novels by Robert Venditti and Brett Weldele concerns remote-controlled androids of the future, developed to obliterate crime in society, that are mysteriously being 'murdered'. These incidents, however baffling, should not being causing harm to the very-human "surrogate" owners, but is resulting in their deaths as well. Two FBI agents smell a rat, particularly when one of the dead units is discovered to belong to the son of the reclusive doctor responsible for inventing surrogates. Top-heavy with gadgetry, this lumbering thriller seems plastic and embalmed...what can you say about a movie so humorless that it adds in a belching technician just to rouse its audience? Bruce Willis, as both the head Fed and his lookalike surrogate (with a blond weave!), looks exhausted. Mechanically directed by Jonathan Mostow, who paces the conversational scenes like episodes from a TV detective series. Anything but entertaining. * from ****