Sci-fi with a brain

Rating: Null/10 (31 March 2011)

Somewhere—in desolate wind-swept space—
In Twilight-land—in No-man's land— Two hurrying Shapes met face to face,
And bade each other stand.
"And who are you?" cried one, agape,
Shuddering in the gloaming light. "I know not," said the second Shape,
"I only died last night."
Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Identity
Be it from aborigines or astrophysicists, alternative-universe theories intrigue me. Army Captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) finds himself not in Afghanistan, where he was just flying helicopter missions but as a civilian on a train going to Chicago. Although the beauty opposite him, Christina (Michelle Monaghan), knows him as someone else, he does not know her or anyone else on the train.
Source Code is a sci-fi with a brain, perhaps not as intriguing to as The Assignment Bureau, but engaging nonetheless because like that study of free will, Source Code also dabbles in physics and metaphysics just long enough to make us believe that a character like the Captain can be part of a simulation project that sends him back to 8 minutes on that train in order to find its bomber to stop subsequent sabotage.
Director Duncan Jones opens with music and shots of Chicago and the train moving toward it as Hitchcock might have, or did in a similar way in the opening North by Northwest, with the train coming later. The suspense reminds me also of Hitch as it hovers around identity, or loss thereof, and greater consequences than just for ordinary mistaken identity.
Colter falling for Christina is not a stretch anymore than Cary Grant falling for Eva Marie Saint or Mark Damon for Emily Blunt, charming women all. As in Adjustment, the growing romance helps in the reality department where the metaphysics seems unbelievable.
At this time of year, a dead zone for movies in the first four months, it's comforting to have brainy movies to relax with. Come to think of it, Liam Neeson's Unknown, while not sci-fi, is concerned with the loss of identity as in Source Code. All three movies move quickly, all ask a certain amount of disbelief suspension for the holes in the plot, and all have romances believable while forgivably clichéd.