[movie] Source Code

[CeeKay]

After Prince of Persia I'd just write off a Jake Gyllenahaal, but this new one is from the director of Moon (although he's not writing this time).  here's the trailer.

[Ironrod]

Could be an entertaining mashup of The Matrix and Groundhog Day, but the central gimmick seems rather contrived. Presumably they'll have some mumbo-jumbo explanation for the "last 8 minutes" bit.

[EngineNo9]

Presumably they'll have some mumbo-jumbo explanation for the "last 8 minutes" bit.

And I'm sure that "explanation" will take all of 10 seconds and make no sense. 

[rshetts2]

Im not sold on Jake Gyllenhal's ability to carry a movie, especially after Sands of Time and the plot for this looks pretty contrived and gimmicky.  I liked Moon so Ill give this a shot but probably not until its on disc.

[CeeKay]

Presumably they'll have some mumbo-jumbo explanation for the "last 8 minutes" bit.

And I'm sure that "explanation" will take all of 10 seconds and make no sense. 

penguins, bananas and Old Spice.

[Ironrod]

Presumably they'll have some mumbo-jumbo explanation for the "last 8 minutes" bit.

And I'm sure that "explanation" will take all of 10 seconds and make no sense. 

penguins, bananas and Old Spice.

Flux capacitors and a subspace anomaly.

[Caine]

while jake is not going to turn anyone's opinions of him with one movie, neither did leo.  the trailer looked kind of fun and it has a nice sci-fi hook to it.  could be a good diversion movie

[Soulchilde]

Seen  this before but with a better actor in the lead role

[CeeKay]

saw this was airing at SXSW.  I remember some people mentioning they were going to that, did you happen to catch the movie too?

[whiteboyskim]

It'll be interesting how far into it they get before Jake breaks the "8 minutes only" rule and goes for a stretch of 15-20 minutes.

[rittchard]

So did anyone else see this?  I really enjoyed it.  Not in a "blown away" sense, but it was just a really nice, solid, kind of smaller-scale sci-fi/drama, mixing a number of tried and true sci-fi concepts and kind of giving it a fresh twist.  Not a lot of special effects or action hoopla, the excitement value is contained in the drama of the plot, which is pretty refreshing.  The story kind of blends elements of that old TV show 7 Days, Groundhog's Day and a couple different episodes of ST:TNG.  I really like how they tastefully handled the sci-fi elements.  Most importantly, Jake is excellent in this role (you might think I love him in everything but that's not true, I thought he was really miscast in Prince of Persia) and the supporting cast is great too.  The acting is really what drives the movie forward, and I'd say his performance is what ultimately makes it work. I also like that they give you a little something to chew on and discuss if you're a sci-fi geek, so that's always fun.

Spoiler for Hiden:

I really liked the ending(s).  Yes I'm a sucker for "happy" endings but I just couldn't see a scenario in this movie that would leave me feeling good, yet they managed to pull it off.  Really you've got 2 (or more) endings and I suppose it's up to you to choose which (or if both) really happened.  Either way I was pretty much happy with it. 

In the case of Jake's reality, though, I guess my question is what happened to the other guys' consciousness, was he just erased or merged?  Presuming you buy that he really was creating divergent alternate realities with each jump  (as opposed to the whole thing being just some sort of program/virus gone off on its own), something had to happen to the guy's consciousness whose body he took over.

[Scuzz]

I read a review in my local paper on it Friday and the reviewer gave it a B+.....

[PR_GMR]

saw this was airing at SXSW.  I remember some people mentioning they were going to that, did you happen to catch the movie too?

I caught it at SXSW. Hell, I was at the world premiere. And, yes, Duncan Jones and Jake Gyllenhaal were there. Michelle Monayhan and Vera Farmiga too (she's strikingly attractive). The movie itself is pretty good. Well-executed, moves fast and it keeps you guessing until the very end. I'm afraid that I wasn't completely sold on the ending. The screenwriter Ben Ripley was there, but the movie played too loosey-goosey with quantum physics. In any case, I say it's worth the watch.

[PR_GMR]

Spoiler for Hiden:

I really liked the ending(s).  Yes I'm a sucker for "happy" endings but I just couldn't see a scenario in this movie that would leave me feeling good, yet they managed to pull it off.  Really you've got 2 (or more) endings and I suppose it's up to you to choose which (or if both) really happened.  Either way I was pretty much happy with it. 

In the case of Jake's reality, though, I guess my question is what happened to the other guys' consciousness, was he just erased or merged?  Presuming you buy that he really was creating divergent alternate realities with each jump  (as opposed to the whole thing being just some sort of program/virus gone off on its own), something had to happen to the guy's consciousness whose body he took over.

Spoiler for Hiden:

This is unfortunately where the movie loses its hold on its premise. You see.. The other guy is dead. Jake (himself also dying) is forced to relive the last 8 minutes of the other man's memories. Jake is technically never traveling back in time (this is my main issue with the movie). He's just 'revisiting the source code'. So.. he's really not changing time. Being able to re-thread a person's memories isn't time traveling.. and the movie never explains this. The ending, thus, doesn't make any sense. Unless you want to believe that Jake enters the afterlife while re-living the dead man's memories. It's a major jump.

[rittchard]

Spoiler for Hiden:

I really liked the ending(s).  Yes I'm a sucker for "happy" endings but I just couldn't see a scenario in this movie that would leave me feeling good, yet they managed to pull it off.  Really you've got 2 (or more) endings and I suppose it's up to you to choose which (or if both) really happened.  Either way I was pretty much happy with it. 

In the case of Jake's reality, though, I guess my question is what happened to the other guys' consciousness, was he just erased or merged?  Presuming you buy that he really was creating divergent alternate realities with each jump  (as opposed to the whole thing being just some sort of program/virus gone off on its own), something had to happen to the guy's consciousness whose body he took over.

Spoiler for Hiden:

This is unfortunately where the movie loses its hold on its premise. You see.. The other guy is dead. Jake (himself also dying) is forced to relive the last 8 minutes of the other man's memories. Jake is technically never traveling back in time (this is my main issue with the movie). He's just 'revisiting the source code'. So.. he's really not changing time. Being able to re-thread a person's memories isn't time traveling.. and the movie never explains this. The ending, thus, doesn't make any sense. Unless you want to believe that Jake enters the afterlife while re-living the dead man's memories. It's a major jump.

Spoiler for Hiden:

I interpreted it differently.  I think that Jake's character believes that (and is ultimately correct, as he is vindicated in the final scenes) his transfer of consciousness (while for science purposes is linked to some computer driven "source code") is a true transfer of his consciousness that defies space/time, and even the original programming that did the transfer.  In some sense he has both tapped into - and thus is creating - splinter parallel universes by the very act of transferring his consciousness.  It's not so much time travel as it is consciousness travel to another parallel reality - and if you decide to buy into that it's not too far a leap to assume that changing events in this new "reality" effectively creates a splinter reality.  So there's also one ongoing reality where the girl got off the train but they didn't catch the bad guy. 

The thing is if you *don't* buy into that, and you presume he's just revisiting the dead guy's memories, how do you explain that he could do anything outside the parameters of what the man experienced?  Like when he gets off the train, or interacts with other characters that the dead guy didn't, how are those details "filled in" by the source code?  If it's all based on one dead guy's memories, anything that guy didn't experience, even peripherally, would have to be fake stuff filled in by the program itself.  And that would include the identity of the murderer.  If the source code was so awesome it could fill in all those details, why wouldn't it be awesome enough to just figure out who the killer was itself?  Riddle me that Riddler!!!

[Blackjack]

I finally got around to seeing this on a day off yesterday. I really liked it. The plot is sort of this onion that the movie gradually peels away, and I thought the eventual "reveal" was cool. And the ending wasn't a Last Exorcism-style "What the hell did I watch this for" feeling. This worked for me.   Even if the over-thinker in me wanted to know why it was limited to this particular incident, and that particular segment of time etc.

Despite the special effects, the movie apparently had a pretty modest $32M budget and has gradually reached $46M domestically, not bad at all (according to http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=sourcecode.htm) even if nobody would call it a blockbuster per se.

I think it would make a pretty good triple feature with Groundhog Day (even if the films are polar opposites in mood, the basic conceits are the same), and the decent 1994 Von Damme actioner Timecop (though that veers more into "Back to the Future" territory, rather than repeating the same time segment over and over). Speaking of which, Paramount is supposedly interested in "re-booting" Timecop (w/o Von Damme). I still find it bizarre that studios can't think of something more interesting than remaking 1990s films.  

There was also some thriller some years ago where this gizmo or formula let you sort of "experience" the last few minutes of a murder victim's life in hopes of seeing or at least hearing who their assailant was.

[kratz]

I saw this last week and I really liked it a lot.

RE: All this:

Spoiler for Hiden:

I really liked the ending(s).  Yes I'm a sucker for "happy" endings but I just couldn't see a scenario in this movie that would leave me feeling good, yet they managed to pull it off.  Really you've got 2 (or more) endings and I suppose it's up to you to choose which (or if both) really happened.  Either way I was pretty much happy with it. 

In the case of Jake's reality, though, I guess my question is what happened to the other guys' consciousness, was he just erased or merged?  Presuming you buy that he really was creating divergent alternate realities with each jump  (as opposed to the whole thing being just some sort of program/virus gone off on its own), something had to happen to the guy's consciousness whose body he took over.

Spoiler for Hiden:

This is unfortunately where the movie loses its hold on its premise. You see.. The other guy is dead. Jake (himself also dying) is forced to relive the last 8 minutes of the other man's memories. Jake is technically never traveling back in time (this is my main issue with the movie). He's just 'revisiting the source code'. So.. he's really not changing time. Being able to re-thread a person's memories isn't time traveling.. and the movie never explains this. The ending, thus, doesn't make any sense. Unless you want to believe that Jake enters the afterlife while re-living the dead man's memories. It's a major jump.

Spoiler for Hiden:

I interpreted it differently.  I think that Jake's character believes that (and is ultimately correct, as he is vindicated in the final scenes) his transfer of consciousness (while for science purposes is linked to some computer driven "source code") is a true transfer of his consciousness that defies space/time, and even the original programming that did the transfer.  In some sense he has both tapped into - and thus is creating - splinter parallel universes by the very act of transferring his consciousness.  It's not so much time travel as it is consciousness travel to another parallel reality - and if you decide to buy into that it's not too far a leap to assume that changing events in this new "reality" effectively creates a splinter reality.  So there's also one ongoing reality where the girl got off the train but they didn't catch the bad guy. 

The thing is if you *don't* buy into that, and you presume he's just revisiting the dead guy's memories, how do you explain that he could do anything outside the parameters of what the man experienced?  Like when he gets off the train, or interacts with other characters that the dead guy didn't, how are those details "filled in" by the source code?  If it's all based on one dead guy's memories, anything that guy didn't experience, even peripherally, would have to be fake stuff filled in by the program itself.  And that would include the identity of the murderer.  If the source code was so awesome it could fill in all those details, why wouldn't it be awesome enough to just figure out who the killer was itself?  Riddle me that Riddler!!!

Spoiler for Hiden:

Yeah, there is no time travel... it's parallel reality... in one parallel reality the train didn't blow up...  I guess I thought that was obvious.

[Blackjack]

I do see the ending as open to interpetation btw, just maybe not as specifically as Inception's spinning top. Someone might think their way of viewing it is the only "real" ending in Source Code, and anyone who doesn't see it the same way is a dunderhead... but I like the idea anyone can come away with their own view on it.  

I would've liked maybe just a few more grains of backstory on Monaghan's (can you believe she just turned 40 btw?  ) and Farmiga's characters and the program director. otoh, it's kind of cool to be in the same situation as the main character, knowing as little about them as he does himself.

I wonder if there's a novelization of the film that might've had more of that. I'll be interested when the DVD comes out, if there are maybe some deleted scenes along those lines. I could understand editing them out for a faster-paced film -- I'd just kinda like to learn a little more about them just cause I enjoyed the story.

[hitbyambulance]

did anyone else notice that the (voice of) the main character's father was played by Scott Bakula...

heh heh

[rittchard]

did anyone else notice that the (voice of) the main character's father was played by Scott Bakula...

Really?  Oh boy!

[leo8877]

Saw this last night and it was actually kind of entertaining.  Cheesy a bit, but still entertaining.