Source Code

I just saw Source Code at a second run theater. I don’t remember hearing a whole lot about it when it was released several weeks ago. I vaguely remember seeing a trailer at some point, a friend of mine mentioned on Facebook that he liked it, and a podcast I listen to referred to it as interesting. It wasn’t one that I was especially drawn to from the trailer, but because I heard it was interesting, I glanced at some reviews (which were generally fairly positive) and figured it would be worth checking out at some point, maybe on cable down the road. But then I noticed it was playing at a second run theater, and since my semester just finished and I’m in the mood to just relax a bit as summer break begins, I decided to see it.

I think the reason that it didn’t get as much buzz as some other recent movies is that it’s one of those science fiction movies where the premise is hard to explain well in a trailer; furthermore, the premise doesn’t really make a lot of sense. However, if you just go with it, it’s really a good time. Here’s the situation. There’s a bomb on a train (no this isn’t a new sequel to Speed). The train has already blown up. But our hero wakes up on the train in another man’s body eight minutes before the explosion. He’s being sent back in time to try to discover who the mad bomber is so he can prevent a second bomb from destroying the city of Chicago. I know: What? But there’s an explanation for how the military scientists can send somebody back in time into somebody else’s body, but only for eight minutes at a time: something called source code. How does source code work? Blah, blah, blah. Quantum physics. Blah, blah, blah.

You can see why it was tough to make an appealing trailer from this material. And, seriously, it sounds pretty ridiculous. But this movie is thrilling. It reminded me of several other movies. There’s a pinch of Speed (but in a good way), a dash of Memento (because the movie begins in the middle of things with a guy waking up not knowing where he is or how he got there or even who he is), a heap of Groundhog Day (as he relives the same events, only eight minutes at a time instead of a full day at a time), and even Inception (since there’s the weird world of “source code” and the sort of real world after the explosion and they keep going back and forth between the two). And all of those elements make for a fun, engaging movie.

It isn’t just thrills, however. Yes, there’s the mystery of trying to find the bomber and the mystery of trying to figure out what the hell is even going on, but there’s also a fair amount of character development. And I think the performances of the main actors are really what make this movie work so well. Jake Gyllenhaal, in particular, gives this oddball premise a sense of weight. As I watch the events unfold, I’m far more concerned with how he feels than with whether or not he can prevent a nuclear bomb from destroying millions of innocent folks. And by the end of the movie, I had actually run the gamut of reactions from sitting up in my seat with excitement to laughing to pondering the notion of multiple parallel universes to even tearing up with emotion.

The one caution I’ll give here is that this might be the kind of movie that is best to go in without big expectations. I went in thinking, “I’ve heard it’s interesting. I don’t exactly know what the whole story is, but I’ll give it a try.” And I was really surprised by how enjoyable it was. I wonder, though, if I would have liked it quite so much if I had expected it to be amazing. Often expectations make a big difference. The movie that everyone raves about turns out to be good but also disappointing. So to prevent you from having that experience, I’ll add a few final thoughts: the premise is ridiculous, it does bog down a little in the middle when he’s going back through the same eight minutes over and over again, and the end takes maybe longer than necessary to wind down. See? It’s not that amazing. So go in thinking it’ll maybe be a decent way to distract yourself for a couple of hours, and you might be surprised how good it is.