Source Code

Source Code is a movie about time travel. It is comparable to Groundhog Day, Daybreak, Vantage Point, Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Cause And Effect" and Quantum Leap. It's one of those movies that keeps repeating the same events over and over again. The first pass through you're shown everything in purposeful agonizing detail which is a clear sign that these events will repeat themselves.

Source Code stars Jake Gyllenhaal as Capt.Colter Stevens, Michelle Monaghan as Christina Warren,Vera Farmiga as Colleen Goodwin, and Jeffrey Wright as Dr. Rutledge. The story is about a soldier (Gyllenhaal) who is tasked with a mission to travel back in time to the last eight minutes before a horrific terroristic bombing aboard a crowded Chicago passenger train. By using technology to shift his consciousness inside an unsuspecting male passenger he must find out who the bomber is to stop this from happening again. 

Each eight minute trip to gather clues about the bombing causes events to play out a little differently than before. The filmmaker attributes these time excursions to creating a series of alternate timelines each time Stevens is sent back. But on the surface, its just a movie repeating itself over again.

To add depth to what is seemingly an ordinary time travel story there are a few surprises about Colter Stevens' "condition" and the creation of alternate timelines and what is perceived to be "real" when Stevens isn't traveling through time. These things do set this movie apart.

In the typical Hollywood tradition, Stevens manages to cultivate a love interest during his multiple eight minute time travels with fellow commuter Christina Warren. It's one of the more heart-warming elements of the story.

Still I had hoped for something a little less mundane. While it was interesting seeing Capt. Stevens fit the pieces of the puzzle together and solve the crisis and cause the movie to end in an unexpected way, I was really hoping the movie was about more than just stopping a terrorist bombing. From the secrets being kept from Capt. Stevens I was looking for him to be mankind's last hope of survival and having to repeatedly go back in time to prevent not just the bombing but the destruction of the human race.  Nothing so grand as that but the implications of the movie were nearly as deep.

I'm not a fan of watching stories repeat themselves over and over again. Yet the twists in Source Code do redeem the movie somewhat. Out of 5 fingers I'm giving Source Code 3.