Surrogates

Jonathan Mostow's Surrogates reminds me of James Cameron's The Terminator insofar as they are both science-fiction films which express a paranoid attitude regarding post-modern technological developments. In The Terminator, we're exposed to a world where machines rule and the natural path has been thoroughly eroded (note that as it has become increasingly obvious that we are necessarily linked to technological advancements, the Terminator series has adjusted and in Terminator Salvation we meet a humanistic machine/human hybrid). In Surrogates, we're exposed to a world where the majority of people have purchased beautiful remotely-controlled androids (surrogates) to live out their lives for them; or, a world where people live out their lives on the internet after creating multiple ideal identities. Tom Greer (Bruce Willis) has a surrogate but longs to have person to person conversations with his wife (Rosamund Pike as Maggie Greer) who criticizes him consequently. Eventually, Dr. Lionel Canter (James Cromwell) (creator of the surrogates) seeks revenge after his son is murdered by a weapon which destroys surrogates but also bypasses their safety mechanisms and kills their operators. He's also rather upset after having been pushed out of VSI, the company he founded to market, develop, and promote the surrogate lifestyle. He finds a way to use the weapon to destroy every surrogate and their operators, and, after the worst antagonist/protagonist encounter I've ever seen, attempts to do so. Fortunately, Tom Greer is there to prevent the weapon from annihilating humanity, but, eager for a conversation with his wife, he still uses it to destroy all the surrogates, taking us back to a simpler time (i.e., before the internet) (the John Carpenter ending). Thus, the distraught individual makes a personal choice that collectively disrupts the foundations of his culture, a culture that had practically eliminated violence, crime, racism, and so on. I find it hard to believe that anyone could be nostalgic for that way of life and had a tough time digesting the ending. The internet presents a lot of opportunities and an abundance of information and I'd rather partake in its virtual reality than any of its preceding fantasies. I suppose Surrogates is saying that things are moving to quickly and we should slow down and reevaluate the ways in which the internet is permeating every social/cultural/political/economic/ . . . sphere, and the ways in which it is changing traditional methods of human interaction. This makes sense: I don't want to go camping with a laptop. But socializing on the internet isn't some grand disruption of the traditional order of things that threatens the ways in which we interact with one another. In fact, it broadens the social domain and provides us with another means through which we can communicate on a progressive social scale, while still continuing to have face to face conversations.

Live Free or Die Hard

I remember watching the first Die Hard flick as a child and instantly becoming addicted. It rivals Robocop and the Terminator for best action film and continues to deliver a strong mix of solid pounding timeless one liners and thrilling death defying situations to this day. I was slightly distraught after hearing that the fourth installment in the Die Hard series was being released since the fourth installment in a franchise is often a slipshod affair, thrown together to make a quick and careless buck at the expense of its loyal fans (Hellraiser: Bloodline, Star Trek IV, and Alien Resurrection stand as exceptions). But after viewing Live Free or Die Hard, I sit content, happy in the knowledge that director Len Wiseman (Underworld) and screenwriter Mark Bomback (The Night Caller) crafted an entertaining film that has me hoping that one day we may be fortunate enough to see Die Hard 5: I Just Want Another Cigarette.

The fourth installment in a series is often free to discover a completely new situation for its characters, one that strays from the narrative threads that closely linked the first three films/novels/texts (God Emperor of Dune for instance). Live Free or Die Hard recognizes this potential and delivers a fresh situation full of politically relevant commentary, intriguing new characters, and delicate action sequences etched on rationally chaotic backdrops. It’s another acute adventure for street wise John McClane of the NYPD. And fortunately Bruce Willis delivers the goods, discovering that crisp, charming character he's crafted for years (to which he adds a fatherly nuance that can only be described as abrasively benign).

In 1988, not possessing an intricate knowledge of computers and the internet didn't stop John McClane from outwitting Hans Gruber, but in 2007, McClane's technological illiteracy leaves him handicapped. Fortunately, hacker Matt Farrell (Justin Long) tags along, providing McClane with the cyber-related-know-how he needs to save the world from brilliant computer programmer Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant). Gabriel has launched a Fire Sale attack on the United States which proceeds in three stages: eliminating the structures that facilitate a nation's transportation, erasing the nation’s financial records, and disengaging its utilities. The dynamic established between Willis and Long is cohesive enough to overcome Olyphant's solid but one-dimensional villainy, and their witty dialogues quaintly yet corrosively accentuates their generational and psychological fissures.

The message of the Die Hard films seem to be that life is rough and things often don't work out the way you won't them to, but, nevertheless, when you find yourself confronted with such realities, you've still gotta, what’s the phrase, keep on keeping on?

Note that the relationship between McClane and grown daughter Lucy McClane (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) provides Live Free or Die Hard with the same familial punch that gave the first two films their endearing touch, and there's a subtle reference to FBI agents Johnson and Johnson from the original. And McClane can now fly a helicopter.

Not bad.