When I think of movies that people who don’t watch movies like, this is a movie that I think of. I thinking this was masterclass stuff back in the day when I didn’t know anything. The writing in this is so damn lazy though, idk how someone could see it any other way. Apparently people like Source Code tho. 

This is an interesting premise, being able to relive the last eight minutes of someone’s life in order to find a terrorist. They really had to stretch this just to get to 90 minutes. I still can’t stand Vera Fermiga, but every interaction between her and Gyllenhal is just to drag out the runtime. He’ll ask basic questions like where am I, what am I doing, and she just refuses to answer and confuses him further for no damn reason other than to drag things out. They keep being like oh you won’t get it, just focus on what we tell you, and they don’t tell him anything to purposefully leave him in the dark. It’s such lazy writing. You could write twenty minutes out this movie by just having an exchange that goes like “you’re in a real world simulation, you’re dead but still alive for this program, you can save millions of people if you help us, it’s what your dad would’ve wanted.” They’ve apparently been working with Gyllenhal’s character and wiling his memory in Source Code for two months, but they don’t know how to get him to do what they want, are you fucking shitting me??

The scenario that this is such a specific scenario for the program in this movie to actually get used. Hilariously unethical to basically steal someone’s brain and force them to continually die against their will. Speaking of unethical, wild ending where Jake Gyllenhal explains how he’s on a moral crusade that save these people even if it might not matter, but in doing so completely steals some poor teacher’s life that he gets sent in as. This movie ends with Gyllenhal literally living some random guy’s life in a random guy’s body in an alternate universe. What the hell is that. 

The villain stinks. We get one scene with the villain and he’s just like “society sucks, let’s rebuild from some rubble.” The last trip into the source code is some decent hallmark stuff with all the slow mo thru the train as everyone is smiling and laughing when the clock hits zero. For a Chicago based movie they barely use anything from the city at all, except just going to stare at The Bean to wrap the movie. 

Hilariously dated- asking people if they have internet on their phone, pulling out a keyboard phone to use Bing as a search engine. Just saying “but terrorists” as a response to anything. They also just don’t explain at all how this creates another universe. They barely explain how source code works at all. No movie logic even that I can kinda buy, they just say you wouldn’t get it cause it’s calculus and quantum physics. Lazy as fuck writing to not even try. 

Fun to watch to see how dated it is. I’m so confused why this has some pretty positive reviews. It’s just a nothing burger. Some good but cheesy moments when Gyllenhal keeps looking at the guy whose body he is stealing’s girlfriend and saying stuff like “what would you do if you have one minute to live?” “I only have ten more seconds please just tell me it’ll be okay.”