PlotOkay...
So, there's this guy on a train, I mean, he's in a capsule...
No, okay...so, consider the space time continuum...
Erm, Jake Gyllenhaal looks hot, even when he looks like crap...?
Re-Plot
We walked in just as the movie started - with Jake waking up in another man's body. There were credits still on the screen, so I'm hopeful that this is actually the start of the film. On a side note, if a cinema decides to not show any of the trailers and usual pre-feature crap, and actually start the movie at the start time - shouldn't there be some sort of notice for patrons?? I mean you can't just change the rules on me people!!
Re-Re-Plot
Jake, an army helicopter pilot serving in Afghanistan, wakes up in a train and discovers that he seems to be inhabiting someone else's body. The train explodes, and Jake is thrust back into his apparent reality - which is inside some sort of capsule. Vera Farmiga is his mission controller and explains that he can inhabit the body of a living person in the final eight minutes before death - as long as they share similar physique and brain chemistry. Something about 'afterglow', and that this eight minute do-dah is the Source Code - and that he must continue to relive the eight minutes (on the train, in the body of the same man) until he can discover who the bomber is - which in turn will prevent a future, more devastating attack. My god. I could go on and on explaining this. There is no way to make this concise... ugh.
The Time Travel Thing
or TTT as Stephen Hawking likes to call it.
So the mission control people, namely Jeffrey Wright as the inventor of the Source Code, believes time is a straight line, and therefore that an event which has already taken place cannot be undone or altered. The purpose of the Source Code program is to collect information to prevent future (bad) events from happening.
Jake, on the other hand, believes that time is relative to the events of the present. So that the changes he makes in the past, will necessarily affect the future. Unless I'm missing something here (and please tell me if I am), my response to this would be 'derr fred'. Doc Brown told Marty (and therefore us) decades ago that "You must not see anybody or talk to anybody. Anything you do could have serious repercussions on future events"....Back to the Future, in case mum didn't get it. I'm not sure how the terribly wooden Dr Rutledge (Jeffrey Wright) could have missed that when he was inventing the Source Code - or indeed Ben Ripley when he was writing the movie?
To put it less simply, Jeffrey subscribes to the approach of classical mechanics, in which Euclidean space is treated as universal and constant, and necessarily indepedent of the state of motion of an observer. Jake, on the other hand favours a relativistic approach, where time cannot be separated from the three dimensions of space, because the observed rate at which time passes for an object depends on the object's velocity relative to the observer and also on the strength of intense gravitational fields, which can slow the passage of time. All clear then.
But okay. Like all good time travel capers, it's not really about being a painful downer who questions all the science and logic - it's about shutting up and enjoying the ride. And I did for the most part. The dilemma posed by the repetition (of the eight minute cycles) was handled in the same way as Groundhog Day - there were enough points of difference in each eight minute burst to engage us. And Jake is a handsome and heartfelt lead.
The supporting cast are also great - Michelle Monaghan as the 'distracting love interest' (Jake quips when he believes himself experiencing a simulation exercise), and Vera Farmiga as the face of the 'faceless' army division, are earnest and believable. As mentioned, Jeffrey Wright was the weakest link, but I'm probably being too harsh and he's not that weak. I certainly want to like him (as an actor, not necessarily the characters he plays).
I also enjoyed the dinginess of his capsule, and of Jake frankly, in his 'real' time scenes. Very reminiscent of Duncan Jones's first feature, Moon. On a side note, Zowie Bowie dumps all over Duncan Jones - change it back dude.
We missed Clint Mansell in the score department. Wiki says that he was unfortunately replaced by Chris Bacon due to time constraints. Which is a shame. Yet another aspect that was Hollywoodified. Big budget sound to go with the big budget special effects.
A fairly commercial and accessible movie, particularly when compared with Moon, but one I thoroughly enjoyed. My main problem was with the ending (spoiler alert! ... who am I kidding, the whole thing is a spoiler alert, I did warn you at the outset though) with Stephen, the body of the bloke Jake had been inhabiting, not returning to this body. After all, it is Stephen and not Jake that has been saved. Right?
