Somewhere in the middle of all my reviews I forgot to write about one! And that film is Source Code, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan, Vera Farmiga, and Jeffrey Wright. It’s directed by Duncan Jones, the brilliant voice behind the 2009 sci-fi film Moon. So in order to make it up to the film, I’ve decided to write a real full-blown review. Hold onto something.
Source Code is about Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal), a soldier on a special mission to hunt down a serial bomber. But this is no ordinary hunt, as the first bombing has already happened, and using a special program that recreates eight minutes before the disaster, Colter must relive the last few minutes on the train over and over again, each time in search of the bomber. So what follows is a mix of Ground Hog Day and Speed with a little Eternal Sunshine thrown in. Colter is only given the 8 minutes before the first train exploded to find clues. He keeps being dumped in, and must interrogate his fellow train members, find clues, all the while trying to figure out who the bomber is to prevent the second attack that is due to come later on in the day. And remember that the train has already happened, so it’s like a simulation. Of sorts.
It’s a little confusing to explain, but that’s it in a nutshell. Now let’s start off by talking about what this film did well, and that’s have two very charismatic stars as the leads. Jake Gyllenhaal and Michelle Monaghan are simply delightful, and bring a lot of energy to what could have been insufferable roles. Vera Farmiga and Jeffrey Wright are throwaway parts, and mostly you see them on a computer monitor. But Jake and Michelle are great.
However, that’s about all I can say is good. The VERY first person I thought was the killer, really the most obvious choice, turned out to be the killer. None of the characters had personalities and were all two-dimensional cardboard cutouts. The story is ludicrous, and not in a way that was intentionally silly. This film tried really hard to be smart, and it just came off as even more ridiculous. I’m not going to give away any of the spoilers, but there are some twists that make it even worse, even if they do add intrigue at points. And then the story devolves into an Eternal Sunshine-type story, where Colter is trying to get with the girl (they revealed this in the trailer, so it’s not a spoiler). I know, it’s shocking that the guy tries to save the girl, and they bring in all this alternate reality crap that seems rather convenient at the end of the film.
It’s been a couple weeks since I saw it, so I could have told you more later. But really, the movie is just boring. If you don’t buy into the premise, and you grow frustrated with the main characters having to rely on the personalities of their stars due to lack of development, then this film will get REALLY old. Especially because it’s the same setting for most of the film, and they relive that moment over and over again. Where Groundhog Day could explore the rest of the city and really bring a sense of charm to the people who live there, we learn almost nothing about the characters on the train except for what’s right on the surface. But really, Colter only has 8 minutes to work with, so it’s a little difficult to spend time with people when there’s a bomb about to go off.
As a follow up to Moon, I feel like Duncan Jones really took a step down with this film. There is an excess on display, and I wonder where the money went to in the making of this film. The special effects, maybe? They were serviceable. I guess the stars asked for a bit of money. But over thiry million dollars? A bit much for not much payoff. The whole film is predictable, with certain details providing small pockets of mystery in an otherwise paint by the numbers science fiction film. It borrows interesting ideas from other films while providing little that is new. Has some entertaining sequences, but I would not recommend paying for this, nor would I ever feel the need to watch this again. 5.5/10
For those of you keeping track, that puts this film as slightly better than SWAT and slightly worse than Morning Glory. And this puts me up to 74 movies!
