New York Comic Con: Surrogates Trailer

Shortly after the Up panel at the New York Comic Con today, we received a look at the trailer for Jonathon Mostow's upcoming live action adaptation of The Surrogates starring Bruce Willis. The film tells the tale of a future where people can transplant their minds into robotic bodies with ease and experience the world without any consequences. That, of course, leaves the door open for all sorts of risky behavior. Willis plays an FBI agent tracking down a criminal who is bent on forcing humanity to live their own experiences again, instead of relying on these robotic surrogates.

At this point, the trailer does little to sell the film as anything unique. While the core concept is new, it also looks like yet another Bruce Willis cop film, and a particularly cheesy one at that. Shots of Willis's character jumping long distances (as a surrogate) seem downright laughable—which is troubling because I believe this is the final cut of this trailer. Think of the Matrix/Ghost in the Shell acrobatics gone horribly wrong and you'll have an idea of what I mean. The other action elements seem similarly cheesy, and most everything else seen in the trailer does little to wash off the stink of mediocrity for Mostow post-Terminator 3.

I was hoping that maybe it was just a badly cut trailer, and that we'd receive some more information to get me excited about the film. Unfortunately, all we got was a bunch of Wilhelmina models handing out cards for chooseyoursurrogate.com. It was an interesting way of selling the core ethical dilemma in the film, but it was disappointing that we didn't get any sort of panel or other information on the film. I haven't looked deeply into the site yet, but it looks as if it will help you build a "perfected" version of yourself as a surrogate after uploading a photo.

Surrogates is currently set for a September 29, 2009 release, so they still have some time drum up excitement for this film. Currently it looks like it may be this year's Babylon A.D., so I suspect it may be a tough sell.