Source Code

It would seem that spending too much time watching reviews on ThatGuyWithTheGlasses.com does not help to enjoy a movie. To be more specific, I watched Source Code and prepared for quite a good movie. IMDb reviews were mostly around 9 points. As I later discovered with surprise.

I only chose to download it because someone on the Internets said that it's one of the most underrated films of the year. While this might be true, it's actually not saying much.

I'm not usually one to give an open opinion about the movies but I feel like getting it out of my system as I just have to disagree with IMDb comments somewhere.

*Spoilers obviously.*

Source Code starts with pointlessly long footage of a train and Chicago. I'm not impressed. We see a guy waking up on a train with no memory of how he got there and not recognizing his face and the name a woman sitting next to him calls him. Last thing he remembers is being a helicopter pilot in Afghanistan. Continues 8 minutes of absolutely pointless confusion, a lot of which is spent talking with a lady who I presumed to be his wife. Which she wasn't. Which painfully obviously meant that he is going to fall in love with her. Because it seems fitting... as they spend like an hour together on a train (as in on a same train. Most of the time not talking to each other.)... Or much longer, it's not that clear.

Then the train explodes. The pilot, named Colter, wakes up in a capsule sort of a thing and it turns out that he is taking part in a secret, I'm sorry, TOP secret military operation which magically, I mean, quantum mechanically lets people relive last 8 minutes of someone's life. Yeah... because SCIENCE! Colter must find a person who planted the bomb on the train to help stop another attack on Chicago downtown which will involve a dirty bomb.

He is sent back some more times and spends time ignoring direct orders to try to find the guy who is behind the bombing and being generally incompetent. After every 8 minutes he gets back to the capsule and talks to the military lady on the screen, called Goodwin (subtle...). There's also Dr Rutledge who doesn't have a first name and who sounds first of all like a guy doing voiceover to some movie trailer and second of all, evil. He also has a evil crutch and an evil beard.

Anyway, Colter finds the bomb quite quickly, finally disarms it though there's still the backup. He also manages to save Christina the love interest. She has a nice smile. That's about the only thing I remember about her. Most characters on the train seem barely anything more than caricatures but I can forgive this as technically we have only 8 minutes to get to know them.

Colter is told that it doesn't matter whether he saves anyone as it doesn't affect the present and those people are already dead. Also, painfully often he's told that every second counts because there's still that guy with a dirty bomb out there in the present time. He doesn't seem to care about that and spends precious time trying to convince the scientist that he knows that saving people will work in real time. Because he knows. (Gee, I wonder who's right? The evil scientist with an evil limp or the nice military guy who spends time falling in love with a person who is already dead, instead of saving millions of innocents?)

Also he realizes that he's dead. What a shock. Noooo. I absolutely didn't expect this from ten minutes in.

He FINALLY gets the guy behind the attack. Evil guy with no reliable motive reveals his dirty bomb and shoots Colter and his love interest. We might care more if we didn't knew that their deaths are meaningless as they already died in the train a while ago.

Colter tells military guys the name and license plate of the evil guy and asks to be put to death as agreed with Dr Limp after a final trip back in time so he could play a hero and save everyone on the train. Good enough.

Swat team takes down the evil guy's van (On live television for that matter. Huh. They really were hoping that the terrorist guy doesn't listen to a radio station with news about swat team chasing him.) and to my big surprise they arrest him and nothing goes wrong. Everybody lives. Yay!

Turns out that Dr Evil Voice only cares about his work and how the success will give him more money or something. Because time travel apparently wasn't good enough for the higher-ups without a captive terrorist. So he suggests that they will not give Colter his last wish and just wipe his memory and re-use him to have a chance to save millions of more lives. At that point I actually see his point. This technology is more than groundbreaking. He could save lives. And with memory erased he wouldn't have to feel that betrayed. (Also, he's been in the facility for either two months or a week, it's not clear and it sounds rather likely they've already used him for some experiments.)

Oh well. Goodwin is a nice and caring person and sends Colter back for the last time and goes to kill his body. Colter disarms the bomb and after calling to say good bye to his father (yeah, there was a useless subplot about him), pays to a bad stand-up comedian and on the last minute kisses miss Love Interest.

At the same time in real life Goodwin goes to terminate Colter's vital signs. Which, turns out, means actually killing him. I mean, I thought he was dead! DEAD dead, not Hooked-to-a-life-support-machine dead. And it's actually not even a life support system, he just has a few wires attached to his torso! He's breathing on his own, his heart is beating on it's own he is even moving a bit! How the hell could you describe that as 'dead' to him? There is an actual difference between turning off a ghost and killing a person. Murder sort of a difference, lawfully speaking.

Well, granted, he only has a scarred and burned torso left of him but he is alive. Which is no short of a medical miracle! If Dr Rutledger is capable of keeping someone who is missing half their body alive with only few wires attached to them he should work for public, not the military. He could save millions of lives, win countless of Nobles and be a hero to the whole of humankind. Oh well. I guess he's really not into that sort of things.

Goodwin kills Colter. I can understand why it was a good and decent thing to do but I can't stop wondering what happened after that. She was a military officer working in a top secret compound who refused to follow orders and killed a guy. Somehow, lot of jailtime and problems come to mind when thinking of her future. Way to go, kind-hearted woman, you blew your future for a guy you didn't know.

Also, the life goes on for Colter. He's in an alternate quantum reality, that's why.

We're shown how Goodwin gets a text explaining that Colter stopped a terrorist attack and how his theory of alternate pasts is actually true, which doesn't make much sense, but whatever, I shall not dwell on this.

I also can't help but wonder how Colter's life is going to go in a body of some random guy. He knows nothing about him. He doesn't even know where his new home is. He doesn't know the relatives, the friends, coworkers, how to be a history teacher, where his workplace is, nothing. This is going to become an issue within hours after walking away from the train. The woman who likes Colter actually likes some guy who she shares a past and memories and quite a lot of life with. Oh well, I guess he can just say that he hit his head, had selective amnesia which also taught him how to fly a helicopter. It could work.

Well that's basically what this movie was. I haven't slept properly so excuse all my mistakes.

All in all it was actually a decent movie. The main problem with it was the fact that the suspense didn't work because we knew that if Colter fucks up he can just go back and do everything all over again. Of course there was the fact that he had to do succeed in the past before the new attack happens in the present time but it was crystal clear that he'll get his information before it's too late. I mean, he was a main character. Another thing was that there just wasn't enough characters to care about. Colter , Christina was boring, Goowin needed more personality, Dr Rutledger was funny and no other character was really established.

That said, acting was decent and Christina was the most likeable character and I could buy her crush for the guy Colter's mind invaded. Pace wasn't bad and story wasn't that bad. It could've done with some twists though. I like twists. Him being dead does not count as a twist. I could see it two and a half minutes in. And two minutes of it consisted of a footage of a train. And the fact that the world where Colter saved the train turned out to exist does not count either for the obvious reason of obviousness.

The main problem for me was the fact that it was a letdown from what I'd been hoping for and it is not actually the fault of the film.

If you take it up as a quick entertainment with lots of footage of a train being blown up and with about six gunshots you'll be up for something better than you expect.

I wouldn't pay for it but if there's an hour and a half gap in your day you probably wont regret seeing Source Code.

There you go. My opinion. Next time I want to see a movie, I wont do it straight after spending time watching critical reviews about bad films.