Saturday, April 2, 2011

Movie Review: "Source Code

By Skip Tucker
"Source Code" is a major disappointment. A blatant rip-off and unholy coupling of 1993’s “Groundhog Day” and the TV series “Quantum Leap.”

Naw, just kidding. April Fools. "Source Code" was an amazing, edge-of-your-seat thriller that sets a new standard for this type of sci-fi.

Jake Gyllenhaal plays Capt. Colter Stevens, a helicopter pilot serving in Afghanistan who wakes up to find himself on a train bound for Chicago, surrounded by people he doesn’t know. He no sooner discovers that he’s in someone else’s body when a massive explosion rips through the train. He awakens to discover that he’s acting as part of a top secret military program known as ‘Source Code’, which allows him to cross over into another man's identity in the last eight minutes of his life. The whole premise is for Capt. Stevens to find the bomb and the bomber, not stop the attack – that’s already happened – but to avert a second attack, this time involving a nuclear bomb. After each 8-minute trip back, he slowly unravels what’s going on – both on the train and with the Source Code itself.

Directed by Duncan Jones (who was also responsible for the under-hyped, overly praised 2009 bomb “Moon”), “Source Code” delivers. If I hadn’t accidentally spilled an entire large-sized cup of Diet Coke all over myself and Eldest Unmarried Son William halfway through, this would’ve been the best movie experience of the year.

So far.