I definitely fall into the "Loved this Movie" category. It works on so many different levels--as horror, suspense, mystery, thriller, even love story. In fact, I don't think this movie could've worked nearly as well if you didn't actually feel for this guy (Robbins) wholeheartedly. You can tell that this guy really loved his wife and his child. That's a testament to Robbins' performance. As others have said, I think the movie makes complete sense: Everything in the movie that occurred after Vietnam never really happened. He is simply imagining/hallucinating/dreaming it all as he lay dying in Vietnam. That's not to say that some of those events that he dreams about didn't really happen; for instance, his son really has died and he is now remembering him. And he really did work at a post office and probably had a crush on one of the workers there (Pena), so he is imagining a separate life with her. It all fit very well for me. However, I do have one problem with my own theory, and it's somewhat small, but important in my opinion. If everything after Vietnam never really happened, how did he find out about "The Ladder" (Bad LSD) as he lay dying? In the movie, an ex-Nam buddy tells him about it back in the States. But if he never actually went home, he would never have known about it, being that one of his own soldier-buddies attacks and mortally wounds him in the jungle. My best rationalization for this is that as he lay dying, he overheard some doctors or military personnel discussing what the bad LSD had wrought. Jacob then transposes those conversations into his own dreamlike state, creating the character of the hippie LSD scientist who created it. Yet it seems as though we are meant to believe that the scientist (Craven) actually did create it. It's the one part of the movie, for me, that crosses the line between the two worlds (reality and dreamlike/nightmare) and expects us to accept it. I wonder if anyone else has the same problem with this one pat of an otherwise fantastic movie.
Review of Jacob's Ladder
