Reviews

We're half-way through the movie, and it's going well, when Wikus decides he's got to go back to his office to find the gel canister.

Here are the facts:

• Wikus is a wanted man, who's face is plastered all over the news. - The alien 'Prawns' are eight feet tall ick-monsters. - The slum district is surrounded by heavily armed soldiers who's job it is to keep aliens IN the slum. - In twenty years, not a single alien weapon has been smuggled out of District 9.

BOOM! An explosion heralds the arrival of Wikus and his alien buddy who have somehow snuck out of District 9. In broad daylight. With alien weapons. And walked to downtown Jo-Burg to start blowing stuff up.

... I don't think so. :(

'Surrogates' is a film that shows how the introduction of a new technology has radically changed the world we know. This new technology, which is freely available to everyone, has brought the crime rate down to almost zero, and united humanity in ways never before imagined, leaving a few filthy hard-line rednecks to wave the flag against progress.

So! What is wrong with this picture? Rather than think about what would REALLY happen with everyone using robots to do everything, the writers of this film have created their own reality for the sake of convenience. For example:

• Why would giving everyone a mind-controlled robot to play with reduce crime? The robots allow anyone to do ANYthing, so surely EVERYone would be doing EVERYthing! Life would suddenly be like Grand Theft Auto. Also, while everyone's using their robot, they're practically asleep in their own homes, so home invasions and other related crimes have never been easier. - How does everyone get a robot? You *know* the poor ain't getting' one, but apparently abject poverty is no barrier to joining the robot revolution. - Why can't the FBI fly over the redneck camp? They can hack into people's robot feed and shut them down legally within 20 seconds, but fly a helicopter over some hippie's love circle? Forget about it, Willis, hand over your badge and gun.

And now, my other problems with this film:

• the entire film was shot on a dutch tilt (i.e. the camera is askew; this device normally indicates something wrong in a scene). I noticed this about thirty minutes in, and after an hour I realised the director was probably trying to say something about his world (i.e. 'this world ain't right') and would likely have the camera right itself in the closing scenes. Sure enough, when Willis makes amends with his wife, the camera goes level, so all is right with the world once more.

This is the most pretentious conceit I have seen in film in a long time. Yes, a director must communicate through the language of film, but an entire movie on the dutch tilt is someone saying 'Look at me! I'm saying something important!'

• Why didn't the bad guys send hit men or ninjas or something to James Cromwell's house and just kill him for real? He's in a wheelchair, so it ain't like he's going to outrun a ninja. So much simpler than using a super secret weapon and blah blah blah. Plus, the ninja could make it look like an accident or natural causes. - Why did James Cromwell commit suicide right before seeing everyone else die? And why a cyanide capsule? He had a perfectly good gun right there! - James Cromwell (in robot form) just happened to sneak into Radha Mitchell's house and see the EXACT MOMENT of recorded footage that would tell him how kill everyone on the planet? What are the freakin' ODDS of this, people? - We've got instantaneous mind control over robots that are miles (if not hundreds of miles) away, and yet we still use USB? Please.

Ah screw it, this movie was crap and I feel better now. :)