Source Code Review Thread (Spoilers)

[Darkhawk9587]

I cannot wait to see this film. It looks great. And, because I love Moon, my expectations are high for this one.

[Crimson King]

Zowie Bowie is at it again! Moon was homerun, he's a great directer IMO!

[JTStarkiller]

Hot damn! Source Code's been selected as the opening film for SXSW.

Picked up my badge a few months ago. Looking forward to seeing it in March. I'm sure Duncan will be there, and hopefully a few of the cast members as well.

[Bishop_99]

I just saw the trailer for this movie and I'm sold. I like the concept of the movie, it reminds me a little bit of 'Deja Vu.' Hopefully did a good job and it turns out to be a good film.

[Taipan]

I'm optimistic with this one. I'll keep an eye out for it in theaters....

[The_Basterd]

Originally Posted by Indiewire

SXSW REVIEW | Duncan Jones’ “Source Code” Messes With Your Head and Your Heart
Drawing on time-shifting concepts reminiscent of “Groundhog Day” and “Run Lola Run,” Duncan Jones’ “Source Code” inhabits the spirit of old-school sci-fi while effectively providing a measure of pathos. As he did in his prior film, “Moon,” “Source Code” showcases Jones’ ability to provide ample entertainment value with sharply drawn characters in a minimalist setting.

Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Capt. Colter Stevens, a helicopter pilot originally stationed in Afghanistan who abruptly finds himself on a train just before it blows sky high. Traumatized, he awakes in a shadowy chamber. On a screen in front of him, commanding officer Carol Goodwin (Vera Farmiga) interrogates the soldier about his experience, which seems to be a fabricated event that he must endure in a parallel reality.

And then, with the click of a button, Stevens’ controllers hurl him back into the Chicago-bound train eight minutes before an undiscovered bomb kills everyone on board. He soon learns that he is returning to the scene of the crime to discover the bomb (which he does rather quickly) and the culprit (a greater challenge). Stuck in a dangerous loop, his detective skills quickly take root. Since he must also divine the conditions of the experiment thrust upon him, Stevens (and the audience) is in the center of an existential brain teaser.

Still, “Source Code” never turns into the fast-paced thriller that the plot might suggest. The movie maintains a real-time feel throughout its 93 minutes, despite returning to the train at least a half-dozen times. Ben Ripley’s screenplay (cited on the 2007 Blacklist) focuses on a small cast of personalities and explores how the ticking clock impacts their behavior.

As Stevens returns to the ill-fated train, he begins to fall for the soul-searching girl (Michelle Monoghan) sitting across the aisle and second-guesses the motives of the tight-lipped military overlords who keep sending him back. With Stevens’ conundrum as the movie’s central perspective, we take the head trip with him. Since he must decipher developments with only the information at his disposal, he’s always an unreliable narrator, allowing for the possibility of a game-changing twist at any given moment.

In between his lethal outings on the train, Stevens finds himself in a surreal enclosure that mirrors his confused state of mind. The compact, almost theatrical set creates a remarkable sense of confinement, much like last year’s coffin-set “Buried.” In both cases, a man stuck in a solitary environment and speaking to voices from afar creates constant tension.

Hardly a big-budget action spectacle (the CGI looks good enough, but not top-of-the-line), “Source Code” is a lower-key younger brother to “Inception.” It has the complex infrastructure of top-tier science fiction cinema while toying with blockbuster formula. Trumpets blare, things explode, a villain is out to destroy the world—but everything relies on Gyllenhaal’s successful embodiment of a man who must come to grips with his own mortality and learn to make every second count.

Sounds cheesy, but intellect underlines the sincerity. Where “Inception” had plenty of smarts but little heart, “Source Code” has both, delivering a life-affirming message while playing it cool. Screenwriter Ripley occasionally overindulges in the ramifications of the imaginary technology (“We finally have a powerful weapon in the war on terror,” enthuses the crazed head scientist played by Jeffrey Wright), but the pulpy content adds to the film’s oddball allure.

Like “Moon,” where Sam Rockwell spent most of the time talking to himself within a lunar enclosure, the cumulative dramatic effect of “Source Code” relies on an isolated character learning to escape the infrastructure that holds him down. The film’s otherworldly premise does push a high concept past its breaking point, but the emotional core is grounded in universal themes and allows the film to geek out with compassion to spare. The appeal of “Source Code” requires a willingness to decipher it while enjoying the ride.

HOW WILL IT PLAY? Probably too weird for mainstream audiences and too sentimental for positive critical consensus, “Source Code” should still find enough appreciative audiences to play decently at the box office for a week or so, with an inevitably strong DVD reception to follow.

criticWIRE grade: A-

http://www.indiewire.com/article/201...ith_emotional_

[Foggy]

IGN gave it 2.5 Stars, and in their review it felt like they were trying to keep nice because they didn't want to see Duncan Jones do a bad film.

Looks like this film is going to seperating audiences

[Walts Ghost]

Originally Posted by Foggy

IGN gave it 2.5 Stars, and in their review it felt like they were trying to keep nice because they didn't want to see Duncan Jones do a bad film.

Looks like this film is going to seperating audiences

I've seen more positive reviews then negative so far, so I'm not worried. It looks great, and Duncan Jones is a fantastic director so I'm sure it'll be a fun ride.

[Diesel]

Saw the trailer for the first time today before Battle: LA.

Looks good, I'll be checking it out.

[Walts Ghost]

Another review, this one from Aint It Cool News

Originally Posted by Aint It Cool

Hello hello! It's that time of year again, when reviews from the SXSW film will start pouring in. I hope to cover as many films as possible this week, so I'll be keeping my reviews short and sweet. Here's my take on the festival's opening night film, SOURCE CODE.

I'm a huge fan of director Duncan Jones' lo-fi, science fiction masterpiece, MOON, so my expectations for this latest effort were admittedly high. I just SO loved the DIY feel of that film and the way Jones used a sci fi backdrop to showcase a serious character study. While SOURCE CODE is definitely a bold step into big budget action territory, Jones still manages to maintain similar themes of isolation, mystery, and self-discovery with terrific results.

The film centers around a soldier (played by Jake Gyllenhaal) whose mission is to thwart a terrorist attack on a Chicago commuter train. Unlike other action adventure flicks that take place on a moving train, screenwriter Ben Ripley has brilliantly crafted a fresh, mind bending story where experimental technology allows our hero to relive the same 8 minute interval on the train until he solves the crime. As the story unfolds non linearly, it soon enough becomes apparent that unfortunately this new, state of the art science has a very dark side.

As with all films that tinker with the time/space continuum, SOURCE CODE definitely demands a suspension of disbelief. In the Q and A following the film Ripley admits that earlier drafts were laden with more scientific explanation, but he felt ultimately that less is more and much of the technical stuff was eliminated. As a result, there are going to be a lot of geeks out there who will inevitably find holes in the overall theory that are big enough to jump through. Despite a few hiccups in doctrine, though, SOURCE CODE is an incredible ride. Duncan Jones shows off his action adventure chops while still maintaining the multi layered character work that I loved so much in MOON. As always, Jake Gyllenhaal deftly holds court as the leading man, however, since little is known about his character other than a brief bit about his military experience and a half-hearted plot point about his dad, I found it hard to sympathize with him at times. Michelle Monaghan (as his train riding companion) sparkles with her usual effervescent charm. Actually, the fact that Monaghan's character is completely clueless in regard to her impending doom makes for quite a refreshing departure from the overall seriousness of the film. While Gyllenhaal and Michelle Monaghan deliver solid performances in the middle of all the hoopla, I was most impressed with Vera Farmiga's portrayal of the commanding officer in charge of our soldier's mission. Though she is almost always confined to a swivel chair and much of her screen time is limited to a monitor view from Gyllenhaal's perspective, Farmiga crafts her performance in such a way that she somehow seems completely removed from these constraints.

Overall, SOURCE CODE is a badass mind bender that I had a ton of fun with. There will likely be many of you who won't be able to get past the somewhat flawed time travel dogma, but I totally encourage you to look past such details and enjoy a marvelously complex and action-packed adventure.

I'll be checking in again with more reviews from the SXSW film festival.

Source

[Foggy]

Originally Posted by Walts Ghost

I've seen more positive reviews then negative so far, so I'm not worried. It looks great, and Duncan Jones is a great director so I'm sure it'll be a great ride.

Ahh good, I'm glad, I've only seen the one on IGN and the one on here, (I usually don't like IGN's reviews)

Originally Posted by Diesel

Saw the trailer for the first time today before Battle: LA.

Looks good, I'll be checking it out.

My friend saw it for the first time as well, he said it looked pretty cool

Sucks we didn't get the Super 8 trailer really wanted to see it on the big screen, I literally can't stop watching it

[The_Basterd]

Originally Posted by Film Blather

Grade: B+
"I took your advice. It was good advice."
Source Code is rock-solid science-fiction, conceptually brilliant and executed with tightly-wound precision. This is director Duncan Jones’ follow-up to Moon, a similarly twisty and ambitious sci-fi think piece that was quietly insinuating where this one sustains the relentless pace of a thrill ride. It confirms that Jones is the real deal – a skilled technician and a thoughtful, clear-eyed storyteller.
The gimmick is that technology allows a soldier (Jake Gyllenhaal) to inhabit the body of another man for the span of eight minutes just prior to a catastrophic terrorist attack on a train earlier that day. He can repeat the eight minutes as many times as he likes, but his mission isn’t to prevent the attack, which he is told is impossible. (He is not actually time-traveling, we learn, but viewing something like an afterimage of the prior events). He may, however, be able to ferret out the bomber, thereby preventing a subsequent, imminent, even more devastating bombing.
Source Code’s plot prescribes its structure: we see the same events again and again as Gyllenhaal’s Captain Colter Stevens attempts to solve the mystery of the train attack. The concept is a clever filmmaker’s dream: the varied repetition all but guarantees a breakneck pace, leavened with the familiar humor of frustration. Gyllenhaal may be playing an elite soldier, but he interprets the role as that of a Hitchcockian everyman who finds himself in an extraordinary high-stakes situation, and it’s a pleasure to watch him improvise. Jones stages the action scenes with unpretentious competence, and Chris Bacon provides a booming, old-fashioned musical score.
But the movie is more than the gimmick, and it quickly becomes apparent that the mystery of the train bomber is at best secondary. Because: who is Colter Stevens? Between his trips back in time, we see that he is locked in some sort of capsule – where is he? How did he get there? Who are the man and the woman (Geoffrey Wright and Vera Farmiga) giving him orders on the video screen?
Here, the film’s structure takes on a deeper significance. Source Code is ultimately a withering and incisive allegory about American wars in the Middle East, and our callous and unfeeling demands of the soldiers who fight them; our insistent subordination of the human toll the war has taken on the armed forces to other, supposedly bigger concerns. Spending day after day scouring Iraqi streets for roadside bombs, waiting for one of them to blow up in your face, is surely akin to being forced to relive the same nightmare, again and again and again.
Source Code has other things on its mind, too, but I will keep its secrets. It should be said that Jones and screenwriter Ben Ripley blow right past a pitch-perfect ending in favor of five additional minutes that only muddy the narrative and thematic waters. But this is a minor disappointment at the end of a painstakingly constructed, uncommonly intelligent film.

--Eugene Novikov

http://filmblather.com/review.php?n=sourcecode

[The_Basterd]

Originally Posted by ComingSoon.net

Rating: 9/10
Analysis:
If this were the '60s, "Source Code" may have been an episode of "The Twilight Zone," but thank heavens it wasn't, because exploring this sort of science fiction premise with a feature film budget allows "Moon" director Duncan Jones to create something that may seem like "Groundhog Day" meets "Final Destination" with a little "12 Monkeys" thrown in, but then quickly finding its own distinct identity.

There is so much in "Source Code" that would be too easy to spoil, but all you need to know is that Jake Gyllenhaal plays helicopter pilot Captain Colter Stevens, who has been assigned to a mission using new technology that allows him to jump into the body of a passenger on a train that was blown up by a terrorist. He can only enter that scenario for exactly eight minutes with orders to find the bomber and stop a much larger terrorist act, each time learning a bit more about the other people on the train, including his travel companion Christina, played by Michelle Monaghan. It may be surprising how entertaining it is to watch Gyllenhaal being thrown back into the same situation multiple times and see how he deals with what he has to work with, but even more impressive is how each of these jumps is kept visually interesting despite seeing many of the same events two or three times.

Working with a crew made up of names we haven't seen on dozens of movies but whom all do a terrific job realizing Ben Ripley's script, Jones creates a film that flows freely through a series of events while feeling less confined than "Moon." The FX, especially the transitions in the jumps between the train and Colter's "ship" for lack of a better term, are done well despite not having a huge budget with only a few CG moments that seem dodgy. Jones wisely avoids the trap of filling a movie with a soundtrack of hipster rock tunes, instead having composer Chris Bacon going for just the right blend of Bernard Hermann to create the tension of Hitchcock's "North by Northwest."

More than anything, "Source Code" is a film full of emotion as Jones gets as strong a performance out of Jake Gyllenhaal as he did with Sam Rockwell, Gyllenhaal ably fitting into the type of everyman protagonist role that helped Hitchcock's thrillers work so well. You're really pulled into Stevens' dilemma as he interacts with his handler, played by Vera Farmiga, and tries to figure out how to fulfill his mission, while also using his military background to explore how real soldiers are affected by returning from war.

Monaghan is just as delightful as ever, keeping things from getting overly serious, the two actors having a romantic chemistry that feels more natural than forced. The only real weak link in the main cast is Jeffrey Wright as the eccentric scientist in charge of the Source Code program, and he puts a bit too much effort into being quirky and odd.

While movies like this often have trouble finding a way to wrap things up, just when you think it's found the most emotionally-satisfying ending, it goes just one step further to leave things a little more open-ended. Even though this isn't a movie about time travel per se, one needn't waste too many brain cells trying to find the sort of anomalies normally created when playing around with big concepts like this, but it doesn't take away from the overall experience.

The Bottom Line:
This is an impressive and ambitious second feature from Jones, one that shows he's capable of handling a fairly complex premise with lots of moving parts. Like the best science fiction, "Source Code" is quite deep and affecting on many levels with a premise that never gets dull or predictable or feels gimmicky. It's very much the type of movie one can see over and over again and appreciate more of its intricacies each time despite knowing some of the many twists going in.

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/reviewsnews.php?id=75041

[KilloWertz]

Having to watch him go through the same event over and over again could have gotten old if the movie wasn't done properly, so it's nice to see positive reviews.

[Walts Ghost]

Originally Posted by killowertz

Having to watch him go through the same event over and over again could have gotten old if the movie wasn't done properly, so it's nice to see positive reviews.

Agreed. Not to mention I love the idea of him trying to change events against the orders of the people he works for. It should be a solid and very entertaining movie. This is one of the movies I'm most looking forward to this year.

[Diesel]

If he had just kept his dagger from when he lived in Persia centuries ago this would be no problem

[Show spoiler]

[KilloWertz]

Originally Posted by Diesel

If he had just kept his dagger from when he lived in Persia centuries ago this would be no problem

[Show spoiler]

[Show spoiler]

[Gamma_Winstead]

Originally Posted by Foggy

IGN gave it 2.5 Stars, and in their review it felt like they were trying to keep nice because they didn't want to see Duncan Jones do a bad film.

Looks like this film is going to seperating audiences

Because they're the end all be all movie reviewers right?

[JTStarkiller]

I saw it last night and wasn't impressed. It's not particularly bad, but it's just not particularly good. Had EXTREMELY high hopes because I adored Moon. This one was just nothing special.

[Foggy]

Originally Posted by Gamma_Winstead

Because they're the end all be all movie reviewers right?

It was the first review I saw of the film, so I was but it's good to see all these great reviews coming through. I have to watch both Sucker Punch and this now as they come it on same day, I'm going to be poor.