I often prefer the idea over the execution when it comes to time-travel/alternate reality science-fiction, because the concept tends to come apart at the seams when some scientist explains the fine print and loses himself in convoluted mumbo-jumbo that is meant to sound impressive and convince readers/viewers that the experts know what they are talking about even if us mere mortals may not. The exception is “Doctor Who”, a show I would categorize more as outright fantasy than science-fiction and in which the technobabble that underpins these complex notions is more often farcical than a genuine attempt to explain itself. What “Source Code” has going for itself, aside from a reliably committed Jake Gyllenhaal performance as a guy who keeps waking up on a train over and over again and has to figure out who is responsible for a bomb going off eight minutes later, is an intriguing premise used in an even more intriguing way, plus a brief running time that allows the script to take shortcuts when it comes to the bigger picture. It’s clever without being preachy and presents its premise with a degree of confidence that you need to have viewers buy in.

The science is murky to say the least, but once the words “quantum physics” are thrown around, it tends to serve as a get-out-of-jail free card for peddling convoluted bullshit the average person can’t entirely wrap their head around anyway and which would make scientists smash their heads against a wall. As long as a script is able to establish a science-fiction concept with rules and stick to them for the running time, I’m willing to forgive a few creative leaps that aren’t backed up by any papers published in scientific journals. There were other questionable decisions not directly related to the science I was less willing to overlook. The legality of this whole project, questioned early on by Captain Colter Stevens when he uncovers his predicament, is doubtful at the very least and Dr. Rutledge’s smug assertion that it was sanctioned by the military seems so utterly unconstitutional that I wasn’t quite ready to buy that. I found it even less believable that Captain Goodwin and Rutledge would deal with Colter’s realization that he is for all intents and purposes deceased as coldly and brusquely as they do. Yes, time is of the essence if they want to stop the second, far more devastating attack, but they also depend on his cooperation and surely there were better ways to pull him back on their side than brushing his concerns aside with little to no comion. Maybe have a psychologist on site in case your guinea pig is smarter than you assumed?

Having said all that, the last fifteen minutes are a brilliant contemplation of alternate realities and timelines that pay off beautifully with a question I hadn’t really expected at all. How many times has Colter saved Chicago already? How often has he died, and his spirit moved on into a different reality by fusing with the source code his consciousness was introduced to? I have to it that I thought I was about five minutes ahead of the film for most of its running time, so none of the twists really blew me off my feet, including the nature of Captain Stevens’s existence and the actual nature of the bunker he is in, mainly because “Doctor Who” did something extremely similar (in fairness, a year later, so Steven Moffat might have copied the idea from writer Ben Ripley). But the -it-on reveal that allows him to exist in a parallel reality in which he saved the day, ittedly by hijacking someone’s body and eradicating his consciousness forever, was an aspect that elevated this from pseudoscience to a far more philosophical plain and until they did it, I didn’t quite realize that’s where I wanted “Source Code” to end up.