How thinking too much can almost ruin an otherwise decent flick

Rating: 6/10 (28 January 2012)

At its simplest, this seems to be the story of a guy reliving the last 8 minutes of someone else on a train over and over before it explodes. How and why is for you to discover. I had a peculiar experience watching this film. At first, I was quite engrossed by the mystery element and the paranoia of what's going on and who's responsible. However, as time went on, I kept being taken out of the picture. My sense of disbelief was hurt because I was finding big logical flaws. I was left dissatisfied and frustrated. However, after reading more about the Source Code concept and the ending online, it seems I was unfair about the logical flaws. The problem is that it's implied, and you assume, it takes place in someone's else memories and/or some kind of virtual reality based on those. As such, our hero shouldn't be able to discover certain things because the person he's in doesn't know them because he never saw them. It's worse when the camera shows you other people without the hero there. If he's not there, how does he know that's happening? So, my big piece of advice for enjoyment of the movie is not to dwell too much on the science explanation part, that in my opinion was lacking. It's probably not what you might think or even what the main scientist thinks. Check on the Internet afterwards to understand as I did.
With that out of the way, let's write about the rest. I thought the directing was excellent with dynamic camera movement in rather small enclosed environments (the train and somewhere else). The recurring fire explosion in slow-motion was sometimes quite artistic. The story was good with nice suspense (despite the repeating), a few very good twists and a few far-fetched occurrences. The science aspect should have been explained better. The main character was acted very well by Gyllenhaal. He excels at playing distress, uncertainty and anxiety. The leading actress was quite fetching and likable, making for good chemistry. The train passengers were unfortunately mostly cardboard-thin (why was it mostly men?). We weren't made to care for them. It's not a special effects heavy movie. It starts as thriller, then veers toward drama and romance. I wasn't really moved by any of it, but I liked the romantic aspect. I didn't care about the ending as it felt like a focus audience consensus, and at that point, I thought it didn't make any sense (unfairly so). The product placement was really irritating. All in all, I think it's an enjoyable movie that I'd have liked more if my brain hadn't picked (mostly unfair) holes in it while watching.
Rating: 6 out of 10 (good)