Source Code: a worthy follow up to Moon
- 29 May 2011
- John Howell
Duncan Jones is on a roll. After writing and directing his mind wrenching movie debut Moon, starring Sam Rockwell, his new science fiction thriller, Source Code, is a perfectly paced, enigmatic science fiction follow up. There are enough twists and complexity in Source Code to keep you thinking long after the credits roll. Jones is just the director this time though, the screenplay was written by Ben Ripley.
Source Code follows ex-soldier, Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal), who appears to have volunteered for an experimental military program. Stevens was formerly a helicopter pilot who crash landed in Afghanistan. The military program (using the “Source Code”) sends his consciousness into the last eight minutes of a man's life to investigate a terrorist attack on a Chicago train. Set almost entirely on the train itself, with the same 8 minutes being repeated over and over, you could have expected the film to be slow and repetitive, but it manages to maintain its momentum from the outset, never revealing too much too soon. Think of it as a tense, serious version of Bill Murray’s Ground Hog Day, with a heavy dose of philosophical introspection and a touch of the Twilight Zone.
The film opens with Stevens waking up and finding himself in civilian clothing on a crowded commuter train. He quickly discovers that he has somehow been transferred into the body of a schoolteacher and is sitting next to Christina (Michelle Monaghan), a friend of the body he is inhabiting. Without giving too much away, it appears that Stevens is strapped into some type of military machine which allows him to transfer his consciousness into the other man’s mind before his death. At the end of every eight minutes, the train explodes, and he ends up back in the machine to start all over again.
Stevens’ ultimate goal is to discover those responsible for the trains explosion, helping the authorities to prevent the bomber from striking again. The only contact he has inside the machine is through a video monitor with military personal, in particular his female commanding officer Goodwin (Vera Farmiga) and the scientist who created the source code technique, Dr. Rutledge (Jeffrey Wright). Injured and trapped, with no memories of how he has arrived there, his situation is traumatic and perplexing. What exactly is the “Source Code”? Is it all real? Can he actually go back and change the past? Where is his mind travelling to? What exactly has the military done to him?
With every eight minute loop, Stevens gets closer and closer to learning who the bomber is, discovers more and more about the “Source Code” itself, and slowly but surely falls for Christina. Part science fiction thriller, part love story, part philosophical exploration, Source Code is a compact, expertly edited futuristic ride.
The final twists and the relationships with both Goodwin and Christina are nicely handled, and while the film borrows from similar works in the science fiction genre and is not 100% structurally sound (especially when you think about it for a bit), it’s definitely a film you should catch when you can.
Source Code will be released on DVD 26 July, 2011. You may still be able to catch it in the cinemas too.
In other Duncan Jones news, his next film Mute, apparently set in the same universe as Moon, has hit funding difficulties and will be released as a graphic novel before it makes its way (hopefully) to the big screen.
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