"Source Code" [movie]
May. 4th, 2011 02:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsOmaha and I went to see Source Code, a sci-fi film with a thin cerebral tissue of plot pasted over excellent acting. Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Captain Colter Stevens of the USAF, who finds himself bizarrely incorporated into what he believes is a simulated reality. He finds himself in someone else's body and he has eight minutes, over and over, to discover who on a train planted a bomb that will kill everyone on board. Think Quantum Leap meets Groundhog Day meets 24.
There are some weaknesses in the film, including one scene where the director clearly didn't know what he was doing, but overall the film is exceptionally satisfying in its effectiveness. Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan (a woman situated across from Stevens when he awakens on the train), and Vera Farmiga (his commander in the Air Force) are all first-rate. Unfortunately, the two secondary characters (both villainous in their own way) are poorly sketched out and their thin, cardboard characters are not well served by the actors who play them. Jeffrey Wright is especially bad as Dr. Rutledge, the biophysicist in charge of "Project Source Code." As Omaha put it, "He seemed nervous, but in the wrong way." The actor seemed unsure of the character.
And the director, for all his skill, seemed unsure of what, exactly, Dr. Rutledge should do when he's not handwaving the science, so we get irrelevant scenes of him hovering over a college workbench-quality microscope.
Also, the soundtrack? Bad. Nervous in the wrong way, too.
Two things really bothered me. The first is that the premise is that Many Worlds Interpretation is correct, and that Stevens is being forcibly transported into a victim's body with each send, which is why reality is different for him each time. If each reality is a reality, then why does Christina start to fade-out, Matrix-style, in once scene? Again, I think this is one moment where the director's grasp on the material he was handling was weak.
The second is that in the last trip Colter saves everyone aboard the train, himself included. Does this mean that the person he leaped into is dead? Does Colter grasp the significance of the life he's chosen to overtake? None of this is answered by the film, there's a "happily ever after" sheen to the ending.
I have one other spoiler about the ending and it's handling of the Many Worlds Interpretation, but it's too spoilery, and I won't ruin the ending quite so much for those who read this far.
I liked the film, it was quite good despite it's flaws. Go to watch the actors act. The special effects are clearly done, there's nothing groundbreaking here and the film doesn't pretend there is.
There are some weaknesses in the film, including one scene where the director clearly didn't know what he was doing, but overall the film is exceptionally satisfying in its effectiveness. Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan (a woman situated across from Stevens when he awakens on the train), and Vera Farmiga (his commander in the Air Force) are all first-rate. Unfortunately, the two secondary characters (both villainous in their own way) are poorly sketched out and their thin, cardboard characters are not well served by the actors who play them. Jeffrey Wright is especially bad as Dr. Rutledge, the biophysicist in charge of "Project Source Code." As Omaha put it, "He seemed nervous, but in the wrong way." The actor seemed unsure of the character.
And the director, for all his skill, seemed unsure of what, exactly, Dr. Rutledge should do when he's not handwaving the science, so we get irrelevant scenes of him hovering over a college workbench-quality microscope.
Also, the soundtrack? Bad. Nervous in the wrong way, too.
Two things really bothered me. The first is that the premise is that Many Worlds Interpretation is correct, and that Stevens is being forcibly transported into a victim's body with each send, which is why reality is different for him each time. If each reality is a reality, then why does Christina start to fade-out, Matrix-style, in once scene? Again, I think this is one moment where the director's grasp on the material he was handling was weak.
The second is that in the last trip Colter saves everyone aboard the train, himself included. Does this mean that the person he leaped into is dead? Does Colter grasp the significance of the life he's chosen to overtake? None of this is answered by the film, there's a "happily ever after" sheen to the ending.
I have one other spoiler about the ending and it's handling of the Many Worlds Interpretation, but it's too spoilery, and I won't ruin the ending quite so much for those who read this far.
I liked the film, it was quite good despite it's flaws. Go to watch the actors act. The special effects are clearly done, there's nothing groundbreaking here and the film doesn't pretend there is.
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no subject
Date: 2011-05-04 09:36 pm (UTC)Probably because, regardless of whether Stevens succeeded or not, the guy whose body he took over is most decidedly dead. Whether that death occurred because the train exploded and took his body and mind with it, or because Stevens saved the train and people on it by wiping the guy's mind and taking it over with his own wouldn't matter.
Of course...
Date: 2011-05-05 03:03 am (UTC). png
no subject
Date: 2011-05-05 09:17 pm (UTC)(BTW, the captcha I just got for this was "topnotch blog." For what it's worth!)
Number 127