Surrogates

** Stars

Bruce Willis returns to the big screen two years after his last starring role in Live Free or Die Hard. Unfortunately, his new movie Surrogates opened to a very disappointing $15 million. Given its pricey $80 million budget, this is yet the latest flop in what seems to be becoming a weekly trend.

It's too bad because this film could have been something really special. Its premise is so promising that while watching the film I felt disappointed in its reliance on cliched action sequences and recycled scenes of political mumbo jumbo. Here's a movie where you have one of the biggest stars in the world playing his vintage type of character (a cop), and this is the best script you can come up with? It's not terrible, but man could it have been so much better.

Willis plays Tom Grier, a detective in a world where surrogates (a robot you control so you can live your life from the safety of your own home) rule the streets. A surrogate can look and act anyway you want it to so long as it obeys the law. Therefore, Tom Grier isn't really a detective until halfway through the film, when he starts to learn the true meaning of life and wants to put an end to surrogacy for good. Don't worry, I'm not giving anything away. That's what the film is about. In fact, you probably already know more than that given the theatrical trailer's ridiculous amount of spoilers.

The movie begins with a murder, one where a real person dies when connected to their surrogate. Dealing with an unprecedented situation, Tom Grier, for the first time in a long time, must disable himself from his surrogate and venture out into the real world on his own. With the help of his FBI agent partner Peters (Radha Mitchell), Tom discovers the dark secrets of a world run by machines.

Surrogates is only 89 minutes long. I'm not saying it should have been longer, because I am glad it ended when it did, but I wish the script would have allowed its main character to grow more before being forced into a situation the story isn't ready to give him. Tom only has a few moments as his real self before he ventures out into the real world. There should have been more drama when dealing with a such a life-changing transition. Why not focus on this character's growth rather than trying to give such a universal message? We know machines can be a bad thing, so don't remind us unless there is a reason. Surrogates has all the pieces for a worthy addition to the science-fiction genre, but it can't quite put it together.

I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell

*1/2 Stars

When you have golden material for a raunchy movie, how is it possible to screw it up? Well, Tucker Max's film adaptation of his best-selling book I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell commits this very sin. The man's book is disturbingly hilarious, which documents his lifelong actions of vulgarity and what many have claimed to be acts of rape culture. Now I knew what to expect before entering the screening of the film, but it's too bad that it follows every single cliche in the bachelor party premise handbook. Perhaps Tucker should have made a documentary style film recreating the acts he has so infamously carried out. Too bad we have to settle for a film so tasteless that even the most tasteless man on the planet can't pull off.

The Informant!

**** Stars

There is a reason why Matt Damon is a movie star, and he proves it with his performance in The Informant!, Steven Soderbergh's screwball dramedy about a man who wants to do the right thing by taking down the corrupted company he works for, but in the process takes down himself.

Damon plays Marc Whitacre, a worker for the lysine developing company ADM. He is respected in the business community and successful in his personal life (he has a loving wife and children). He decides to do something about his company's price fixing tactics by taking it to the FBI. Over the span of the early 90's, Whitacre collected hundreds of tapes that proved the company's criminal activity.

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Unfortunately, his severe bipolar disorder forced him to basically work for both sides. As Whitacre dug himself deeper and deeper into his actions, the people around him began to discover that Whitacre may be a very unstable man. After years of work as a near-perfect informer, Whitacre became more than what he seemed. I won't tell you exactly what he did (in respect to those who want to enter the film blind), but I will tell you that what he did is part of this country's history that is extremely relevant to the times we live in. Whitacre, suffering from bipolar disorder, dealing with being an informant for the FBI, and desperately trying to hold his family together, became so entangled with telling people the truth, lies, conspiracies, gossip, and evidence that he forgot who he was, what he did, and what he had become.

The Informant! is fascinating. For the whole film, Damon, playing Whitacre, is basically narrating what is happening inside his mind. At first I thought the voiceover would be distracting, yet I found myself completely engaged by it. It sucks you into his mind, traps you, and refuses to let go. The script, written with precise detail by Scott Z. Burns (The Bourne Ultimatum) deserves an Oscar nomination for best screenplay. Burns gets so deep inside Whitacre's mind, that he has the character tell you his favorite body part (his hands) and why he wants people to focus on them. He tells us that one time he saved a man's life from choking by giving him CPR, and then explains how they still keep in touch through holiday cards. While it seems a bit pointless, and from an outside perspective rather boring, I can assure you it's not. The Informant! is an absorbing piece of cinema, showcasing Matt Damon like you've never seen him before. It's one of his best performances ever, in one of the best movies of the year.

9

*** Stars

9, based off the short film of the same name by its creator Shane Acker (a student at UCLA who received an Oscar nomination in 2006 for the short film), is one of the best visual experiences so far this year. Had the story been stronger, you would have been looking at one of the best films of the year. Still, Acker's feature film is a worthy spectacle about a group of rag-dolls (all named 1-9) trying to survive a post-apocalyptic setting from the technology and creatures humanity help create. The story focuses on the character 9 (voiced by Elijah Wood) who bands together with his own kind to understand the world's end, and what to do to ensure their safety. At many-a-times, 9's story feels like a video game's, but Acker's direction and visual wizardry demands the audience to see this film where it belongs, on the big screen. It's the only real way to experience it.

Extract

***1/2 Stars

Ten years ago, there was Office Space, Mike Judge's cult classic about a group of workers at a dead end job who eventually try to screw over their bosses. Now there's Extract, a hilarious film that reverses Office Space's premise and instead shows office life through the eyes of the boss. Played by Jason Bateman in top form, Judge's latest is a smart, witty, and thoroughly entertaining comedy about life in the workplace. Dilbert should be put to shame.