Source Code was a mess of a film. They tried to go in 3 directions with 5 concurrent plot lines.
[ul][li]What's the deal with Jake being in another man's body on a train?[/li]
[li]What's the deal with Jake also being in a flight suit and "pod" of some kind in-between jumps on the train?[/li]
[li]What's the deal with "Flight Control" with the Goodwin chick and the scary cripple?[/li]
[li]What's the deal with what's going on outside of Flight Control?[/li][/ul]
Some of these questions get answered. Others, if you checked your cell phone for the time, you'll have missed the explanation.
The story is, and you'd only understand this after the movie was over, is that there's a new government program called Source Code. No, where this name comes from is never explained. Source Code allows the government to scan the brain of a corpse and then send an agent to relive the last 8 minutes of that corpses' life.
Inside those memories, the agent is able to move around, talk to people, and figure stuff out. Specifically, a terrorist bombed a train and the brain of one of the passengers was removed so an agent could relive the memories - try to find out who the bomber was. Other evidence indicates another bomb is coming, so there's a bit of a time constraint.
And all of this sounds like an intriguing premise. It's a thriller where the story is repeated 8 minutes at a time with new information being gained with each iteration. And finally, the agent is able to bring it all together and solve the problem. And you would figure that there are some rules about Source Code:
[ul][li]The agent can't go somewhere where the corpse didn't go.[/li]
[li]The agent can't magic new information unless the corpse knew it too - the agent is just reliving memories, there's no way for new information to be inserted into the scenario.[/li]
[li]The agent can't act to dramatically change the timeline of the Source Code - because again it's all premised on memories of events that already happened.[/li]
[li]The Source Code cannot persist after the 8 minutes - because then there's nothing left.[/li][/ul]
As I sat through the movie, I figured these above rules were in effect - because these rules just seem reasonable for the situation.
Instead, every rule gets broken. The agent goes places and learns new things that the corpse couldn't possible have known. Where did this new knowledge come from? The agent steals a gun and gets arrested. Another time he leaves the train and gets run over by another train. Another time he gets into a fist-fight with the bomber and gets shot dead.
It is a tragedy that the film never explores the life of the corpse except as to how it relates to the agent. We really never learn anything beyond surface details about the corpse's life. The agent, meanwhile, interprets all the information he gains as to how it affects himself, personally. Let's talk about the agent.
It's Jake Gyllenhaal, US Army helicopter pilot on deployment in Afghanistan. And he's the agent. And the first HALF of the movie is spent getting him up to speed. He was actually critically wounded in a battle two months prior to the events of the film, but because his body is the property of the military and his brain specifically makes him an ideal candidate for the Source Code program, his death faked and now he exists inside a life-support pod off in the corner of the office building. The staff of Source Code can totally look over their shoulder and see this torn-apart body.
Well, the program never got around to getting Jake's cooperation. They turn his brain on and suddenly the Source Code operators are frustrated that Jake has questions. Where am I? What happened - I remember something happened during my last flight. Can I talk to my father?
It just seemed so half-assed. For how important the Source Code program could be to fighting the war on terror, why didn't they work out any possible kinks in personnel before the project went active - like getting a volunteer to be the agent and not conscripting a random body? One of the operatives must comment a dozen times that Jake's questions are wasting time: and would she have been any more cooperative?
Second, the movie makes a mistake in making Jake the focus of the story - him discovering the truth of his lost life and then reconciling with his father. See, while inside the Source Code, Jake calls his father and has that conversation that he was never able to have when he "died."
But again, the corpse's brain with which the Source Code is operating on couldn't possibly provide that sort of information. So how was the phone call able to be made at all?
I don't know. The movie has too much going on - the plot and story was very cluttered, and the bullshit fairy tale ending was just so much bullshit that I stopped caring. I think if the film had just stayed with the original premise behind Source Code, and not trailed off in this side-story about the life and times of Jake Gyllenhaal, the movie would have been tighter and more exciting.
The terrorist plot? Well Jake discovers the location of the bomb in his very first jump into the Source Code, and after spending the next half-dozen jumps screwing around and rebelling against the operators, he solves the whole problem and captures the terrorist over two more jumps. Seriously, the movie takes all of 15 minutes for the plot to solve itself. But the movie is almost two hours long, so this gives you some perspective as to how much filler there is.
The scary cripple? See, I imagine that everything in the movie is intentional on the part of the moviemakers. Jake was cast because he's a good looking actor and he looks like an action guy. The girl playing Goodwin was cast because she's pretty and sympathizes with Jake's situation. And the cripple... I can only imagine they had him there because his disability looks menacing and monstrous. He's constantly hunched over, growling at people. I couldn't believe it - but this movie makes the bad guy be a fucking cripple for no reason other than cripples look scary.
I wouldn't recommend it. This movie was just too busy, too cluttered.
[ul][li]What's the deal with Jake being in another man's body on a train?[/li]
[li]What's the deal with Jake also being in a flight suit and "pod" of some kind in-between jumps on the train?[/li]
[li]What's the deal with "Flight Control" with the Goodwin chick and the scary cripple?[/li]
[li]What's the deal with what's going on outside of Flight Control?[/li][/ul]
Some of these questions get answered. Others, if you checked your cell phone for the time, you'll have missed the explanation.
The story is, and you'd only understand this after the movie was over, is that there's a new government program called Source Code. No, where this name comes from is never explained. Source Code allows the government to scan the brain of a corpse and then send an agent to relive the last 8 minutes of that corpses' life.
Inside those memories, the agent is able to move around, talk to people, and figure stuff out. Specifically, a terrorist bombed a train and the brain of one of the passengers was removed so an agent could relive the memories - try to find out who the bomber was. Other evidence indicates another bomb is coming, so there's a bit of a time constraint.
And all of this sounds like an intriguing premise. It's a thriller where the story is repeated 8 minutes at a time with new information being gained with each iteration. And finally, the agent is able to bring it all together and solve the problem. And you would figure that there are some rules about Source Code:
[ul][li]The agent can't go somewhere where the corpse didn't go.[/li]
[li]The agent can't magic new information unless the corpse knew it too - the agent is just reliving memories, there's no way for new information to be inserted into the scenario.[/li]
[li]The agent can't act to dramatically change the timeline of the Source Code - because again it's all premised on memories of events that already happened.[/li]
[li]The Source Code cannot persist after the 8 minutes - because then there's nothing left.[/li][/ul]
As I sat through the movie, I figured these above rules were in effect - because these rules just seem reasonable for the situation.
Instead, every rule gets broken. The agent goes places and learns new things that the corpse couldn't possible have known. Where did this new knowledge come from? The agent steals a gun and gets arrested. Another time he leaves the train and gets run over by another train. Another time he gets into a fist-fight with the bomber and gets shot dead.
It is a tragedy that the film never explores the life of the corpse except as to how it relates to the agent. We really never learn anything beyond surface details about the corpse's life. The agent, meanwhile, interprets all the information he gains as to how it affects himself, personally. Let's talk about the agent.
It's Jake Gyllenhaal, US Army helicopter pilot on deployment in Afghanistan. And he's the agent. And the first HALF of the movie is spent getting him up to speed. He was actually critically wounded in a battle two months prior to the events of the film, but because his body is the property of the military and his brain specifically makes him an ideal candidate for the Source Code program, his death faked and now he exists inside a life-support pod off in the corner of the office building. The staff of Source Code can totally look over their shoulder and see this torn-apart body.
Well, the program never got around to getting Jake's cooperation. They turn his brain on and suddenly the Source Code operators are frustrated that Jake has questions. Where am I? What happened - I remember something happened during my last flight. Can I talk to my father?
It just seemed so half-assed. For how important the Source Code program could be to fighting the war on terror, why didn't they work out any possible kinks in personnel before the project went active - like getting a volunteer to be the agent and not conscripting a random body? One of the operatives must comment a dozen times that Jake's questions are wasting time: and would she have been any more cooperative?
Second, the movie makes a mistake in making Jake the focus of the story - him discovering the truth of his lost life and then reconciling with his father. See, while inside the Source Code, Jake calls his father and has that conversation that he was never able to have when he "died."
But again, the corpse's brain with which the Source Code is operating on couldn't possibly provide that sort of information. So how was the phone call able to be made at all?
I don't know. The movie has too much going on - the plot and story was very cluttered, and the bullshit fairy tale ending was just so much bullshit that I stopped caring. I think if the film had just stayed with the original premise behind Source Code, and not trailed off in this side-story about the life and times of Jake Gyllenhaal, the movie would have been tighter and more exciting.
The terrorist plot? Well Jake discovers the location of the bomb in his very first jump into the Source Code, and after spending the next half-dozen jumps screwing around and rebelling against the operators, he solves the whole problem and captures the terrorist over two more jumps. Seriously, the movie takes all of 15 minutes for the plot to solve itself. But the movie is almost two hours long, so this gives you some perspective as to how much filler there is.
The scary cripple? See, I imagine that everything in the movie is intentional on the part of the moviemakers. Jake was cast because he's a good looking actor and he looks like an action guy. The girl playing Goodwin was cast because she's pretty and sympathizes with Jake's situation. And the cripple... I can only imagine they had him there because his disability looks menacing and monstrous. He's constantly hunched over, growling at people. I couldn't believe it - but this movie makes the bad guy be a fucking cripple for no reason other than cripples look scary.
I wouldn't recommend it. This movie was just too busy, too cluttered.