ALL SCI-FI

[The Spike]

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Source Code is directed by Duncan Jones and written by Ben Ripley. It stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan, Vera Farmiga and Jeffrey Wright. Music is by Chris P. Bacon and cinematography by Don Burgess.

U.S. Military helicopter pilot Colter Stevens (Gyllenhaal) repeatedly relives the eight minutes leading up to a terrorist train bombing in the hope of finding the bomber.

With his excellent first film, Moon (2009), Duncan Jones got himself noticed to the point that many sci-fi fans have been eagerly awaiting his next foray into the sci-fi realm.

So, some pressure is on Source Code to make good on that early promise. Leaving space, Jones is this time on Earth tackling a sub-genre that has had many an installment over the years — the time travel thinker. How wonderful to report that Jones and his sparkling team have crafted one of the better efforts to tackle the subject.

Right off the bat it has to be said that it's easy to draw comparisons to a number of movies that Source Code leans on. Be it the continuous comedy time loop of Groundhog Day, the techno mind meld of Dejah Vu, and thematic snatches from the likes of The Matrix and Frequency, Jones' film is not about to herald a new dawn of sci-fi.

Yet all these things have amazingly come together to create one large intellectually satisfying whole. Sprinkle on some action adrenaline rushes, ease in some suspense, some heart tugging, and a romantic thread that actually belongs! Well, you've got yourself a very tasty piece of pie.

That Jones is able to blend all this without halting the flow of his picture marks him as one who is ready for the big league.

We are after all dealing with a film that for 90% of its run time is replaying an 8 minute train ride. But each 8 minutes brings more to the plot. Tension mounts, clues are dangled, characters come alive, and yet we know that this train still goes kaboom!

The hopeless feel that accompanies the destiny of Colter and the train passengers adds another critical element to why Source Code is top stuff; namely is it possible for Colter to go against the laws of quantum physics? He believes so, and he desperately wants to save everyone on that train. But logic and his superiors tells him, and us, otherwise.

None of this would work if the casting wasn't so astute. Having to carry the film firmly on his shoulders, Gyllenhaal is fantastic, showing a vast range with every 8 minute section of that train ride. From the confusion that brings out neurosis in the early parts, to the manic and steely determination to succeed in the latter stages, he nails it as a flawed, scared, soldier of hope.

Michelle Monaghan's natural attractiveness and earthy appeal really serves her character well, making it easy for us to not want her blown to bits again and again, but also to believe that Colter can save her.

Vera Farmiga is in a small role (arguably just a plot set up), and mostly in close ups via a screen, but she makes good as the icy stickler for orders who begins to melt with Colter's desperate situation.

The liability is Jeffrey Wright, who seems to be pitching his role as the Source Code creator between evil genius and pompous prat! I've no idea what accent he is trying to do, and he blatantly tries to steal the film in every scene he is in. You have to think that had someone like Ridley Scott or James Cameron been directing, such thick ham slicing would have been reined in. Directpr Duncan Jones will learn, one would think.

Chris Bacon's (conductor/I Am Legend) score is suitably Hitchcockian, Don Burgess' (Contact/Spider-Man/The Book of Eli) photography is genre compliant and it's nice to see some Illinois land marks feature. All that and there's even a very notable (homage) voice cameo in there as well.

Even paying off on further viewings, Source Code is a must see for the genre fan. A thriller with heart, a sci-fi with brains, and an action film as well. 9/10
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The quality of mercy is not strnen.

[Bud Brewster]

It took me a year to finally get 'round to seeing this movie, but it's worth the wait — because it certainly gives a guy a lot to think about.

I love movies like that.

I'm going to assume that anyone who has read the first post in this thread has either watched the movie or doesn't care about spoilers. So, you've been warned.

First of all, even though I enjoyed this movie (a lot), the premise is a bit murky — at least the first time I watched it.

The main character (Captain Colter Stevens) starts out thinking he's a chopper pilot who's being given a psych test in an isolation chamber. After several bizarre events occur which don't fit that interpretation, he thinks he's a chopper pilot being used to test a new virtual reality program.





After more crazy things happen that erode the probability of that explanation, he's finally told (through a monitor in the chamber) —





— that the program is creating a simulation of a terrorist event that occurred just a few hours ago, and his mission is to find out where a bomb was located on a Chicago bound double-decker passenger train. Everyone on the train was killed in the explosion.

Including him.





Right. Except that Captain Stevens isn't actually him, because the computer simulation has placed Stevens in the role of a guy who was sitting with a lovely girl, both of whom were killed in the terrorist attack on the train.





Are you with me so far?

No? That's okay, because we still haven't been told what's really going on.

In reality, Captain Stevens is only half a chopper pilot, and his comatose half-body is in an enclosed life support chamber with electrodes stuck into his brain so a computer program called the "source code" can feed him a simulation of the train disaster.





That part is straightforward and understandable (though macabre to say the least), but the explanation of where the data came from concerning the man whose identity Stevens has assumed in the simulation was pulled right out of the stratosphere by the screenwriters.

It's the stories one real weak point (unless I've missed something important.)

I had to watch the movie twice just so I could talk about it intelligently here. It's one of those movies that gets clearer (and better) with repeated viewings. So, don't blame me if you're still confused at the end of this post (and the movie, too, for that matter).

Amazingly enough, the Blu-ray is only $5.00 on Amazon. Mine is on the way.

The Wikipedia article on this movie includes this bit of info. "Inside the Source Code, an experimental device designed by scientist Dr. Rutledge (Jeffrey Wright), he experiences the last eight minutes of another compatible person's life within an alternative timeline"

Don't pay too much attention to that, because it's based on what the inventor of the machine (an intense fellow named Dr. Rutledge) says in one scene about how it works. But even though he seems to be saying it's a simulation being fed into Stevens' brain, he also states that Stevens is living in an "alternate reality". (He also calls it a "parallel reality' in the same scene).





And that's where this story gets really confusing.

The young woman that Stevens communicates with in the real world (Air Force Captain Colleen Goodwin) tells him that the simulation is "just a simulation", and he can't actually save anybody on the train. Dr. Rutledge repeatedly makes this same claim in several scenes.





Stevens, however, becomes convinced that he can save the passengers, and he becomes obsessed with doing so — especially the lovely girl he falls in love with. At first the viewer assumes the poor guy isn't getting the fact that the train bombing has already happened and he's just experiencing a machine-induced hallucination over and over again.





Ah, but things aren't quite what they seem. The film wanders far from the idea that the Stevens is experiencing a computer simulation which allows him to gather clues about the bomber's identity so the terrorist can be captured before he sets off a second bomb the authorities have learned he plans to detonate.

For example, if this is just a simulation, based on memories of the event obtained from the corpse of the young man that Stevens is now filling in for in the "simulation", how does he manage to actually locate the bomb and eventually confront the actual bomber?

Bear in mind that Stevens doesn't just figure out where the bomb might have been, based on clues from the dead man's recovered memories. He actually locates it, figures out who planted it, confronts the bomber in the parking lot at the train station (after leaving the train), and sees an even larger explosive device in the back of the bomber's van.

After doing this, Stevens gives the bomber's name (and license number) to the authorities so they can arrest him . . . in the real world!

Stevens is seeing things that did not happen originally. He's also doing things the dead man didn't do, and he's going places the dead man never went before the explosion killed him. Obviously this is not just a computer simulation based on "probable events".





In the climax, Stevens manages to disarm the bomb and handcuff the bomber to a pole in the train car. He calls the police on the bomber's own phone, identifies himself as the bomber, confesses to planting the bomb and having an explosive-packed van in the train station parking lot!





Then Stevens smiles, walks away, and kisses the girl he's fallen in love with.

At the end of the movie we see Stevens and the girl leave the train and walk into the city in this "alternate reality" — which he tells Captain Colleen Goodwin has been "created by the source code."





Is all this happening in Stevens' mind?

Nope.

The lovely Captain Goodwin honors her promise to Stevens by pulling the plug on his life support system, allowing the poor comatose soldier to die with dignity. So, that's not it.

The movie is presenting us with the idea that Stevens has crossed over into an alternate timeline in which he actually prevents the train's destruction, saves all the people, and now . . . inhabits the body of the man on the train who did die in the original timeline.

But wait . . . how could he remain permanently inside the body of a man who did not die in the train explosion that Stevens prevented?

Well, since he's "possessing" the body of a man from an alternate reality who did not die, that's not really a problem. However, fans have asked director Duncan Jones what happened to the . . . well, the "soul" of the man whose body Stevens takes over, apparently with the intention of keeping it!

Go to this site for some quotes by the director himself, which might confuse you even more when he explains his own theories on that question.



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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

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Well, I guess I said too much about this movie (especially after The Spike did such a fine job with the initial post), so nobody else has anything to say.

That's okay, guys. Just enjoy this fine trailer!

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_______________ Source Code - Official Trailer


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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

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IMDB has 30 trivia items for this movie. Here’s a few of the ones I found the most interesting, in the blue text.
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~ Because the owners of the actual commuter station they planned to film in changed their terms at the last minute, a fake station had to be built in a car park. That meant the white van couldn't be prepared in time. The contents had to be simulated using CGI.

Note from me: Well, I'll be danged. Next time I watch this movie I'll be looking for clues.

~ Jake Gyllenhaal had an ear bud on during the train sequences, into which the director would start playing music at any point of time, which helped Gyllenhaal's character to look disoriented . The director played random songs as well as "static buzz" at times.

Note from me: What an odd way to "help" an actor play his role.

~ Topher Grace was considered for the lead role.

Note from me: I might be wrong, but I don't think Tofer would be quite as good.

~ Scott Bakula: voice of Colter's father. Bakula starts off his phone conversation by saying "Oh Boy". That was his trademark line from Quantum Leap (1989), which has a similar plot to this film.

Note from me: Amusing choice for the role. Scott's character in Quantum Leap had to adapt to a new identify and a strange situation in each episode, making his situation somewhat like the main character's in this movie.

The next item relates to this same idea.

~ The pilot episode of Quantum Leap features the main character played by Scott Bakula jumping into someone else's body in the past, and the episode ends with him calling and talking to his father, as he is still alive during this time. In the final scene of source code, when the main character similarly takes advantage of being in the past to call his father, the father is voiced by Scot Bakula.

Note from me: This takes the idea I mentioned above one step further. Cool.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)