On Second Thought...Source Code

Source Code

Director: Duncan Jones

Stars: Jake Gyllenhaaaaaal, other people

Duncan Jones is high up on my list of new directors that I really like and will see anything they do.  His first movie, Moon, was incredible.  I loved Moon.  I loved it even more when I saw a making of and found out that he used old-school scale models and other filming techniques that get thrown aside for CGI nowadays.  He is a gifted director (and writer) so I was thrilled to see what he was going to do next.  Then I heard he'd be directing Jakey G in a stateside sci-fi thriller and I was pretty darn excited. 

If you haven't seen it, Source Code is Quantum Leap (in fact there's a clever nod in the movie) meets Groundhog Day but with the city of Chicago on the line.  Mostly it's a good movie.  Truly I wanted to love this movie but I just could not get past the technical problems.  And by technical I don't mean the camera was out of focus or the mics didn't pick up the dialogue properly.  No, there were sooo many technical problems with the story itself.  There are HUGE issues with logic that I just cannot get past.  

As I re-watched it last night I hoped that maybe I unknowingly fell asleep in the theater and missed some element that explained the ending.  Nope.  Then the DVD gods smiled on me and the extras weren't blocked!  I thought, "Well maybe they'll explain the end and how they justify doing what they did and it will make perfect sense and all will be well in my little movie-watching world."  Nope. Jones sat there and described the "interesting" ending and I wanted to reach through my TV and shake him silly.

 

I can't/won't go into it because I refuse to get spoilery.  If you've seen it and think you can explain it satisfactorily to me, please shoot me an email.  I'm seriously hoping that I'm just missing something. I will say that there was one spot where they could have ended it and it would have worked.  They didn't and I can't and it doesn't.

I still love Jakey G.and I will follow Duncan Jones into a theater every time he leads me there.  Only now I'll have a pretty large grain of salt with me when I do.