What a Predictable Heap

Rating: Null/10 (15 September 2011)

First off, I've seen enough bad M. Night Shyamalan (whose IMDb star rating has gone down on each successive film he's made since The Sixth Sense) to spot a poorly-concealed surprise twist, but not when it's the twist on the ends of the big, PCP-laced joint that the director was smoking instead of studying physics or even practicing common sense.
Second, yes, it was obvious he was dead. It was obvious he was going to somehow "save" the passengers, or at least the girl. It was obvious he was going to have sex with Heath Ledger on the upper deck of the train. Obviously.
Second off, NO, you cannot record a person's experiences from a stationary train seat (see the movie if you think I sound like a moron for wording it this way) and then upon playback relive totally different experiences through their eyes. That would be what we call "imagination." And, of course, the digital "people" on the Source Code train would not have the same spontaneous personalities of the actual people they represent. They would only do what they did in the original scenario, not react or ad-lib or zag when they really zigged. This would be like listening to a Beatles record from 1964, using a karaoke microphone to jack into your stereo and through it request that George hammer out a metal solo on Can't Buy Me Love...and then you just hear it magically add itself in.
Third, what mechanism in a phone or cell tower or satellite allows a text message to be sent into another dimension from said Beatles record? I mean "Source Code?" Confused?? So was my wife when I tried to tell her this half-assed plot!!
I'm not a realism Nazi. I like fantasy stuff. I like Sci-fi. I like movies with aliens and creatures and spirits and all of the other improbable stuff out there. What I don't like is a director who doesn't even bother to pick up a 12th grade science book, who after two feature films has already established a pattern for his plots and characters, and who pays homage to himself by *cleverly* disguising themes from his first film (for instance, Chesney Hawkes' "The One And Only," used in both films). But at least he's not as bad as Tarantino in that respect.
~B. Rafferty
P.S. - Ways in which Source Code was like Moon:

Main characters are not who they think they are, so to speak - There are many different "versions" of the main character, clones in Moon and alternate realities in Source Code - Each main character has a loved one he can't contact - Each main character has a face on a screen he interacts with from confinement - Each main character is being manipulated by an evil group, and is ultimately aided by the face on the screen who takes his side in the end. - Each has a love he can't be with because it turns out she's dead - Each performs some final act of communication (destroying the jamming tower in Moon, sending the text to Goodwin in Source Code) to disrupt the evil group before departing in the end. - Each main character dies, but it's okay because his replicas live on. - Probably a ton more that I don't feel like typing.

BR