Surrogates

NOW, WHAT'S going on here? Just last week Gamerfound poor old Gerard Butler being controlled by a couch-bound video game enthusiast. Later this year, in James Cameron's Avatar,Sam Worthington's consciousness is transplanted into the head of an etiolated alien smurf.

This week, in Jonathan Mostow's belated follow-up to Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, it's Bruce Willis who gets to live a virtual, vicarious existence.

Anybody able to explain why, in 2009 – after a decade and a half of online life and several aeons of video games – virtual reality has finally taken over cinema should consider knocking their theories into a PhD thesis.

Anyway, Surrogatesturns out to be perfectly decent slice of sub-Philip K Dick pulp. Based on a graphic novel by Robert Venditti and Brett Weldele, the film imagines a world in which almost every citizen remains at home all day and experiences life via an ingeniously designed cyborg.

While the frail, imperfect humans become greyer, balder and fatter in their neglected living rooms, shiny, bouncy-haired robots police the streets, mess about in nightclubs and otherwise sustain their apparently incorruptible utopia.

The spell is broken when a young, handsome boy-robot is murdered and the brain of the person controlling him spontaneously explodes. This is not supposed to happen. Officer Willis (or, rather, a glossier, younger-looking pseudo-Willis) is dispatched to investigate the crime and, as expected, uncovers a conspiracy that threatens to disrupt the delicately balanced status quo.

Intentionally or not, Surrogatestrades in a number of rather delicious ironies. This world is populated by citizens without blemishes, wrinkles or any other signs of aging, who, as a result, look a little like stiffly animated showroom dummies. Sound familiar?

The universe of this speculative Hollywood movie is the universe of too many Hollywood movies allegedly set in the real world. Featuring quite decent special effects, Mostow makes something moving of the contrast between who people are and who they pretend to be.

Sadly, the central conspiracy plays out in very predictable fashion, and the final reversal seems a little too neat. Nonetheless, Surrogatesis definitely the best virtual reality thriller released this morning. If, however, you don't like it there's sure to be another one along after lunch.