Movie discussion : Source Code (2011)

[Hondo]

Jake Gyllenhaal stars in this sci-fi thriller as an American soldier on life support called into duty by the scientists to help solve a crime in the past to prevent another one in the future. Thanks to anything being possible in a sci-fi move this comotose soldier is able to be transported sort of back in time to relive the last 8 minutes of the life of a passenger who dies in a bomb explosion on a train. He can be sent back time and time again and is able to interact differently with his environment every time until he solves the crime.

Don't try to count the amnount of times he relives the same 8 minutes and work out how much real time was taken up because you will wonder how they hoped to solve the crime in the limited time they had.

Think Groundhog Day mixed with Inception and in theory you have a great movie. As a huge fan of Inception and Minority Report (and even Groundhog Day!) I had high hopes for Source Code but was disappointed. Normally I am happy to suspend belief for the sake of entertainment but with this one I couldn't build a bridge over the implausable plot. Not only could Jake's character interact differently each time he went back (wouldn't it be like a recorded movie given it happened in the past?) he eventually is able to change the past and send text messages from the past to the present from an alternative reality. By the end I thought the plot has disappeared up the rear end of it's own convolutions.

For me, it failed to create any suspense and I didn't even particularly hate the bad guy although Gyllenhaal created sympathy for his character's plight.

6/10.

[Q.]

I liked it, if only because it defies all known laws of physics

[Hondo]

If time was such a premium when he first goes in why was he not given any background to prepare himself. Straight up there's 8 minutes of precious time wasted while we has no idea WTF is going on. THEN they explain it to him ...

These are the issues I couldn't build that bridge over.