Surrogates' great and very interesting concept and the amount of talent on display were its selling points, and Surrogates on the whole delivers, its good parts being pretty great actually. Of course it's less than perfect, but none of the not-so-good things come over disastrously, more unevenly if anything else.

The film is a very good-looking one, the sci-fi/technological look very handsomely rendered and imaginatively surreal. It's also beautifully shot and crisply edited and there are some good special effects on display. That is not to say that all the special effects are great, some of them looking rather cheap and being more at home in a film from the late 80s-early 90s. The music has its bombastic, pulsating moments as well as a hauntingly understated quality. Some of the script is interesting and probes a lot of thought, but other parts are on the weak side, with some very clichéd dialogue and it doesn't develop its characters as well as it could have done. James Cromwell's character especially is very underutilised and shallow.

From a story point of view, most of it works. There are some good ideas and subplots that are in a good amount if not all cases explored intelligently and intriguingly but what was really remarkable was the subplot with Greer and Maggie's failing relationship, which brought an emotional core that really resonated with me. It's not completely successful, some of it does plod, especially the conspiracy elements, and much more could have been done with the ending, which felt underdeveloped and confused. The action's a mixed bag, some are energetic and exciting but others are pedestrian and on the silly side. Surrogates is directed efficiently and the cast do a great job, though James Cromwell has been much better and more engaged in other roles.

Particularly impressive were a charismatically world-weary and no-nonsense Bruce Willis and Rosamund Pike's excellent, sympathetic performance ranks among her better roles. Radha Mitchell is also touching. Overall, has some uneven moments but a most intriguing film that delivers on most levels. 7/10 Bethany Cox

I'm a sucker for Bruce Willis movies. I also admit that I'm a fan of director Jonathan Mostow; his movies, such as TERMINATOR 3, might not be favourites, but he always seems to know how to deliver intense thrills and decent action. When I saw the two were combining for this science fiction thriller which looked a lot like I, ROBOT, I was delighted. What guy doesn't like robots and the intriguing possibilities they pose in film? Thankfully, the movie is a darned sight better than that idiotic Will Smith outing, but it's true to say that it's no classic. The main problem with SURROGATES is the uneasy combination of a thinking man's plot with the necessity to appeal to 13 year old boys. Thus, we get a thought-provoking, half-baked plot about mankind's reliance on artificial help and the increasing agoraphobia faced by the laptop generation combined with some fairly run-of-the-mill thrills and spills of a typical thriller. This is an incredibly short film, and neither the plot nor the action are developed very much.

That's not to say it's not entertaining – because it is. Bruce Willis is reliable in an emotional turn, and he gets fine support from Rosamund Pike, Radha Mitchell, and Boris Kodjoe, with minor turns from the imposing Ving Rhames and the impossibly ancient James Cromwell. The film LOOKS good, thanks to Mostow and director of photography Oliver Wood, who's been creating fine-looking films ever since DIE HARD 2 (his Bourne trilogy being a standout). The film has a heart-string tugging central relationship all about loss, grief, and love which gives it an extra dimension over many a lunkheaded shooter.

There are elements of I, ROBOT and THE MATRIX in the storyline, but the themes behind the thrills are far more interesting than the face-value plot. I also loved the creepy look of the surrogates themselves; they seemed to me to be a natural progression of the plastic surgery craze that's been accepted in Hollywood for too many years. Okay, this isn't a great film, but the well-crafted action and strong central performance make it more than watchable.

In the near future, people use robotic surrogates in place of their everyday life. It started 14 years previously with the work of Dr. Lionel Canter (James Cromwell). Now there is a resistance to their use led by The Prophet (Ving Rhames). Crime has been all but eliminated when the world is full of surrogates. Then people actually gets killed when their surrogates get blasted by a new weapon. FBI agents Greer (Bruce Willis) and Peters (Radha Mitchell) investigate. He's married to Maggie (Rosamund Pike). He wants to take a vacation out in the real world as themselves but she rather use the surrogates since the lost of their son. One of the victims is the son of Canter who had been forced out of his company VSI 7 years ago and is now a recluse. They uncover a vast conspiracy.

The movie creates a fascinating world. It's filled with intriguing ideas. I like where this movie is coming from. I do wonder if the movie is better with society stratified between the poor who live in their real bodies and the rich in their surrogates. Instead it's made out to be a choice depending on your viewpoint. The bigger issue is the robotic acting because ... they're robots. There is something disconnected about the unblinking robots. It does allow for some great action but it mostly leaves me cold. As for the ending, I expect something much more action oriented.