Source Code :: A 63 Review

Original View Date: May 6th, 2011



Plot (4/5):
Our protagonist Stevens is trapped in a capsule by the government; he is given a mission to explore the past event (this is not time travelling, only a projection of the past in which he can explore in) in which a train bombing has occurred. Every time he goes back, he has eight minutes to gather more information and find out who bombed the train so that the police can arrest the bomber in the real world. 'Source Code' certainly has an interesting premise. However I feared that maybe the movie might pull a 'Sucker Punch' on me; the mission can get extremely repetitive. But thankfully the film knows how to cut to the chase by the third or fourth time Stevens is sent to the past. It's also fun to see how Stevens learns what's going to happen so by the next time he goes back to the past, he knows they are going to happen. He acts like a god or rather like a man who's playing a video game and using the method of trial and error; this is awesome for the audience to see because everyone has thought about gaining omnipotence. The film can be humorous, suspenseful and likable. It's unfortunate the film pulls a stunt at the end with a huge lack of information and that's a big minus.

Characters (1/5):
The character development for this film is quite terrible. First of all the protagonist is involved in a conflict with his father and this distracts him many times during his mission. Unfortunately we never get a scene of this actual conflict and it's not enough for us to care. For a conflict so impacting (as Stevens wastes trials of going back to the past a few times) the film lacks too much to have an emotional scene at the end. It's not sympathy provoking; how can it be when we don't even know what happened? Secondly, the worst aspect of this film is the chemistry between Jake Gyllenhaal (Stevenson) and Michelle Monaghan's character (Christina). There is NO reason for their characters to fall in love. After all it's an eight minute projection Stevenson is going through and Christina's memories reset every trial. What can he do in eight minutes to fall in love her? He's busy looking for the bomb most of the time where is the time?? Where did the sudden kiss come from? This movie is abysmal with its characters. The antagonist can be interchangeable with anybody as he has no characteristics at all.

Performance (5/5)
Give the actors credit for trying hard and making a believable performance despite the fact that the screenplay is a mess at attempting "characters". Gyllenhaal is a great actor, he's great in this film, again it's just a shame his character is so badly written.

Specifics (3/5):
I so wish they would've just stopped the film when the plug is pulled on Stevens and everything goes into freeze frame. This way the movie doesn't have to lack information to explain the ending and it creates an open ending for audiences to discuss much like Inception.

Theme (3/5):
The themes are quite similar to The Adjustment Bureau. Free will, destiny, etc etc; Not fully developed due to the lack of character development as mention above. The film tries to have a moral by the end.

Dialogue (3/5):
Not so good from time to time. There are a lot of lines that 1. don't move the story forward, 2. reveal a character, 3. create tension. So basically a lot of clutter that we don't need. Also Stevenson does get a handful of one liners that just seem random and unnecessary. Regardless, the dialogue doesn't bother me much.

Overall (3/5):

This is just an average summer flick. There is no outstanding quality to this film for me to laud. It doesn't call for a second view or more but it's safe to say I had fun in the theaters.