Source Code (2011)

[Dave]

Has anyone seen Source Code?

Is it a wait-for-DVD or a must-see-film? The lack of posts about it are pointing to the former.

from AOL Film:
Theatrical release date 01 April 2011
Directed By Duncan Jones
cast Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan, Vera Farmiga
Genre : Science Fiction, Drama, Thriller, Action
Running time : 1h 33min.
certificate: 12A

Synopsis: When airman Captain Colter Stevens wakes up in someone else's body, he discovers he's part of a mission to find the bomber of a Chicago commuter train. A program designed by the government called Source Code enables him to cross over into another man's identity in the last 8 minutes of his life. With a second much larger target threatening to kill millions looming, Colter re-lives the incident over and over until he can solve the mystery of who is behind the bombs and prevent the next attack.

So, sounds a little like a Groundhog Day meets Deja Vu?

I've only heard a promotion for the film being played on the radio with the line "Send me in again!" now beginning to get tiresome.

I like well thought out time travel films, but there aren't many of them, and it doesn't seem that this will make that list.

 

[Moonbat]

I have seen this and I really enjoyed it.
It does have its similarities to films like Deja Vu, but I thought it was much better.
It is directed by the guy who did Moon (Zowie Bowie) and although it isn't anywhere near as classic 60s style sci fi as Moon it is still very enjoyable.

I wrote a bit on it in the 'last movies seen' thread, but no one else has repsonded to my request to find out what others thought, so I guess it was either so bad that no one wanted to comment, or no one has seen it.

The radio adverts don't do it justice, it has some very good moments in it, and the middle of the film really takes you in a different direction that you'd think.
It ends up a bit slow and maybe a poor ending, a bit too romantic, but the whole film actually makes good sense and is well worth a watch.

My GF doesn't really like sci-fi but she enjoyed this too, and I was fairly impressed with their handling of such a sci-fi subject.

I recommend seeing it, but if you do see it and hate it I will not be held responsible.

 

[Vladd67]

Sounds like a cross between Quantum Leap and Seven Days.

 

[Anthony G Williams]

I have been looking forward to watching Source Code ever since I saw director Duncan Jones' highly impressive debut film Moon. I was not disappointed.

US Army helicopter pilot Captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal), on active service in Afghanistan, abruptly finds himself travelling on a train to Chicago, sitting opposite an attractive young woman who clearly knows him. To add to his confusion, when he sees himself in a mirror the face which looks back at him is not his, and he discovers that he is known as Sean Fentress. He is still trying to understand what is happening when a bomb explodes on board the train, killing him and everyone else on board.

He wakes up again in a strange cockpit-like capsule, in CCTV communication with Air Force Captain Goodwin (Vera Farmiga). She explains to him that he has been in the "Source Code", an experimental environment which enables him to experience the lives of people in an alternate reality for eight minutes after their deaths. The people in the train are already dead - he can't save them but he has been sent to identify the bomber since it is believed that a second and much larger "dirty" bomb is due to be detonated in Chicago by the same man. The film follows Stevens' efforts to find the bomber as he is repeatedly sent back to experience the same eight minutes before the explosion. Along the way, he learns more about his own circumstances and becomes convinced that the alternate world in the Source Code is not what it seems.

Like Moon this has an intelligent and intriguing script (by Ben Ripley), is crisply directed by Jones and very well acted, by Gyllenhall and the excellent Farmiga (who impresses me more every time I see her). By modern standards it is relatively low-key with no hype and few special effects; the concentration is on the characters and the story. There is no padding and its 93 minute running time is short, but perfectly judged. It has immediately jumped onto my shortlist of favourite SF films, and I eagerly await Jones' next film.

(An extract from my SFF blog)

 

[Dave]

I wanted to see this at the cinema but never got the chance, so your review just made me rent the DVD. I liked it, and it was possibly under-rated, but I wouldn't go as far as to say it was in my favourite films.

If we are comparing films, wasn't it much more like Ground Hog Day - with an edge, because of both the real life ticking clock, and the limitation of only 8 minutes, stuck on a moving train - but without any of the humour of that film, of course.

I wasn't keen on the ending. Ground Hog Day was pure fantasy. Giving this ability a pseudo-scientific reason meant that it really needed to have more explanation. Was it all purely within his imagination? Or were they alternative and parallel realities that he created on every trip? The project chief threw out some techno-babble and then left us to guess which. And because he saw that piece of sculpture every time he re-booted meant that the final re-boot was fated?

He got the girl, and he got a final conversation with his father, and he got to be laid to rest, but my son really hit the nail on the head. He asked why Colter couldn't ask to go back into his 'own' last 8 minutes of life and save his own life in Afghanistan? Was Sean Fentress' life really more interesting than Colter Stevens?

 

[Moonbat]

Was Sean Fentress' life really more interesting than Colter Stevens?

I'm guessing that the sending of someone into the source code required a lot of resources and so it was only worth it to save man lives.
Not to mention the logic contraints of taking his half dead body from his helicopter wreck and then using it to send him back into his own body prior to the crash, maybe another half dead body could be used to go back and save Colter, but not Colter's own body.
I've been tempted to get the DVD and watch this again. T'was good.

 

[Dave]

It may have been impossible as you say (if Goodwin was telling him the truth he died at least two weeks earlier, but Sean Fentress only a matter of minutes before) but Colter didn't even ask for it. Instead, he asked for one last chance to save the the train passengers. Hardly altruism either, since it wasn't given that they did really survive in anywhere other than his own imagination.

 

[Connavar]

He got the girl, and he got a final conversation with his father, and he got to be laid to rest, but my son really hit the nail on the head. He asked why Colter couldn't ask to go back into his 'own' last 8 minutes of life and save his own life in Afghanistan? Was Sean Fentress' life really more interesting than Colter Stevens?

Did you miss the whole Sourcode was limited time period simulation and he couldnt save his life ? He could change only the 8 minutes on the train, he couldnt go to Afganistan a month back. The only magic time thing that happened was that he got an alternate timeline past the 8 minutes as Sean Fentress because thats was the only life he could save.

I liked most of the film except the ending was weak and sort of time paradox. He has to call that army woman about his other self to stop the scientist, Sourcode.

 

[Anthony G Williams]

As I understand it, Colter didn't actually die in the crash, he - just -survived which is why he made a suitable subject for the Source Code experiment. He was only kept alive artificially. So presumably the "eight minutes" wouldn't apply to him, as it only applied to the dead.

I cheerfully admit that the basic premise didn't make any kind of logical sense, but then no real attempt was made to achieve this. You accept the film's premise on its own terms or you don't. I get really critical of films which don't make sense according to their own terms (e.g. Deja Vu) but I didn't think this applied here.

 

[Hatepeace Lovewar]

It was a surprisingly good film, I say surprisingly because when I went to see it I wasn't aware of it being from the same director who did Moon. Had I known that I would of likely had a higher expectation for the film.

It starts off slightly slow and tedious, but once I started to piece it all together I couldn't help but be impressed by it, good film and I would definitely recommend it.

 

[Vertigo]

I would agree with Conn, I enjoyed the film but thought the ending was weak. Also the preoccupation with saving the girl was plain irritating; after all this wasn't timetravel but a vastly complex simulation based on all the facts available. At least that was my understanding.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

I agree. The ending was weak, but entirely predictable. Hollywood is far too obsessed with "happily ever after" for it to have been any different.

 

[Connavar]

Good to know i wasnt alone about the weak ending. It ruined somewhat a nice, bleak and thrilling story.

It says something of SF films in hollywood that it is one of the best i have seen in recent years. I have not seen Moon, other new SF.

 

[jonathanx]

It was a very satisfying movie, until the end, when it went way more "science" than "fiction"