Surrogates

Surrogates, the Bruce Willis movie, disappeared quickly but it was better than I expected, a B- (perhaps they should have called it Avatars).  Worth a Netflix rental if you enjoy science fiction.  Having said that, what I most liked about Surrogates was that it's clear exactly where it went wrong.  What follows has no spoilers but it won't make a lot of sense unless you have seen the movie.

In the final second of the climax the key choice of the hero is revealed, even though the plot in no way requires this revelation.  It would have been far better to have left the choice ambiguous (think Doubt, Memento and, of course, Blade Runner). Indeed, the script should have been written backwards from the ambiguous choice to all the earlier scenes which justify that ambiguity.  (Some of this material is already in the movie but without the ambiguity of the choice it doesn't resonate, e.g. surrogacy would have saved the son but from early on the Willis character is skeptical of surrogacy thus the character's history provides a reason for him to be world weary but it doesn't drive tension as it should.)

The movie should also have been darker (bizarrely, many scenes take place in brightly lit exteriors).  The best scene is the surrogate "drug" party where the noir element of surface and underlying reality–of things not being what they seem–does come through.  Inexplicably, however, the wife does not partake even though we later learn this would have mirrored her true existence.  

For the choices not taken, Surrogates would be a excellent movie to study in film school.