Movies: “Source Code”

Firstly, it should be noted that I don’t write about movies often because I simply don’t go to movies particularly often. Secondly, it should be noted that if you have a thing for geeky movies that use bits of made-up science to concoct a barely believable plot and you might go see this movie you shouldn’t read any further because I’m 100% committed to spoiling it. You were duly warned.

The basic premise of this movie is similar to many in the genre. *Insert Technology* enables scientists to thwart *Bad Thing* which they do and this results in *Happy Result*. There, now I’ve ruined it utterly. If that’s not enough, I’ll ruin it further. The technology in question is the ability to take a living human brain and send it back in time to take over the brain of a soon-to-be-deceased person in the past. Apparently, the plot seems to implore us to believe, the electromagnetic signature of a human brain continues to bounce around the world for eight minutes after death which means that this technology will allow you to stuff your consciousness into the brain of a person for the eight minutes preceding their demise. So our hero, a wounded helicopter pilot who is little better off than a brain in a jar, is repeatedly thrown back in time to relive over and over the last eight minutes of life belonging to a passenger on a train that’s blown up by a very large bomb.

Interestingly though, in addition to seeing the occurrence over and over, our protagonist is somehow able to repeatedly influence events in these eight minutes and despite the flailing explanation of the scientists in charge, creates a happy ending for himself and the woman he manages to fall in love with in eight minutes. All this goes on quite blissfully despite a fairly sizeable causal contradiction. As is usual in these movies, the hero stops the event that led to his being sent on the mission in the first place yet nobody blinks an eye. The fabric of space and time is not ripped asunder, no parallel realities are formed and somehow in all this confusion, boy still manages to meet girl and fall in love.

My painting of the movie in general is dark but it really did have a chance. As usual, Hollywood makes movies that are almost exactly five minutes too long. Our hero could have died a hero’s death, making good in the world but leaving the smaller evil still in place. Instead the movie had to stretch itself like a lazy cat who leans a bit too far and finds herself plummeting off the side of the bed at two in the morning. Boy did not have to get girl. A few could have died to save the many. Instead we’re left with an interesting exercise in psychology and a bit of fake science that had an saccharine sweet ending crammed down its throat. Clearly worth seeing on DVD but only if you have the willpower to turn it off with five minutes left to go.