REVIEW: Source Code

Source Code (2011): Dir. Duncan Jones. Written by: Ben Ripley. Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan, Vera Farmiga and Jeffrey Wright. Rated PG-13 (some violence including disturbing images, and language). Running time: 93 minutes.

3 ½ stars (out of four)

Source Code is a superb thriller that presents a simple premise, delivers fully what it promises and then, amazingly, keeps going into unexpected but entirely satisfying territory.

That simple premise is of course explained in a lot of sci-fi mumbo jumbo that is not as complicated as it sounds. A U.S. solider, Captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal), wakes on a train to find that he is not himself. The woman across from him (Michelle Monaghan) knows him as a friend from work despite his insistence that they have never met. After eight minutes of understandable confusion, the train explodes and he wakes once more, this time strapped into a cold, steel box filled with wires and computer monitors.

With the help of a fellow military captain (Vera Farmiga) who communicates with him through one of these monitors, he realizes he is part of a special mission. He must investigate a train bombing that has already happened, and he does so by entering the body of one of the train’s passengers. A military scientist (Jeffrey Wright) has found a way to recreate the last eight minutes of a person’s life so that a soldier may enter that body and interact with the world as it was during that time.

What follows is a sort of fast-paced take on Groundhog Day. Stevens must relive those eight minutes until he is able to find the bomber. As though he needs the pressure, he is told he must do so before a second attack is made later that day. In the mean time, Stevens is free to interact with the recreated passengers on the train, altering the course of those eight minutes until, as always, the train explodes.

Don’t examine the film’s inner sci-fi workings too closely. In its brief 93 minutes, Source Code grazes over a number of technical details but thankfully uses its time to pursue of more interesting things. The implications of this technology are explored in a number of fascinating ways. How real is this alternate reality? If Stevens successfully stops the bomb and saves the passengers onboard, will the simulation continue beyond eight minutes?

This is the second feature from director Duncan Jones, whose wonderful Moon (which he also wrote) asserted him as a new talent, bringing the smarts and science back into science fiction. Working from a script by Ben Ripley this time, Jones again delivers a thriller that is both big on ideas and terrifically entertaining. The script, equally indebted to Hitchcock and Phillip K. Dick, is brainy but finds a nice balance between its metaphysical ponderings and its explosions. Source Code has its share of action but these scenes are out of necessity of the plot; the story dictates the action here, not the other way around.

The cast is strong too. Jake Gyllenhaal has become a reliable leading man in recent years and does solid work here as a thinking man’s action hero. Like the heroes of Hitchcock who are unaware of what they are getting into until they are already well into it, Gyllenhaal gains the audience’s sympathies early on and keeps us on his side as he figures out what is going on. Farmiga and Wright have the tough job of hinting at the film’s secrets (and there are a few) without giving them away. Neither character is terribly complex or deep, but both actors give strong, nuanced performances.

When more often than not, today’s action movies prefer to numb our minds rather than stimulate them, Source Code is a welcome break from the noise. The film as is thrilling as it is thoughtful, and its cerebral finale turns out to be even more tense and exciting than the excellent action that precedes it. What more could you ask for?

- Steve Avigliano, 4/04/11

REVIEW: Moon

Moon (2009): Dir. Duncan Jones. Written by: Duncan Jones, Nathan Parker. Starring: Sam Rockwell, Kevin Spacey (voice). Rated R (language). Running time: 97 min.

3 ½ stars (out of four)

Forty years after 2001 (not the year), there’s been a huge improvement in the personalities of our artificially intelligent companions. Gone are those pesky HAL 9000 models with their sinister plotting! Meet Gerty, a decidedly more amiable creation with the friendly voice of Kevin Spacey (apologies to the original Douglas Rain), whose only interest is to help you as best it can. Gerty’s look and polite syntax are of course a winking tribute to the former machine, giving a courteous nod to that grandfather of all science-fiction films, one of Moon’s main inspirations.

In the near future, the Moon is being used to harvest helium-3, Earth’s new primary source of energy. With the memory of an energy crisis still fresh in the public’s memory, a corporation called Lunar has built a mining station on the dark side of the moon that needs only one man to operate it in three-year shifts. Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) walks around his workstation that doubles as his living quarters with a familiarity born of repetition. Due to technical problems with the station’s transmission, he must send and receive recorded video messages to his wife and children, and there’s and occasional encouraging message from corporate. For the most part though, he has only Gerty to talk to, its small screen displaying various smiley faces depending on the tone it wishes to convey. With only two weeks left in his term, Sam’s routine is interrupted by an accident on a rover that knocks him unconscious. He awakens to find not only lapses in his memory, but second Sam Bell. Cue head spinning.

Sam Rockwell, who has been stealing scenes in quirky supporting roles for years, plays the role with energy and convincing humanity. Given the chance to stretch in a film featuring virtually no other actors, Rockwell brings humor to an otherwise foreboding film and captures the idiosyncrasies of man in prolonged isolation. With the help of seamless trick photography, we’re able to watch Rockwell interact with himself without ever doubting the credibility of his performance or the premise of the film.

Moon is science fiction built on suspense, mystery and imagination (as opposed to battling robots or the Starship Enterprise). Aside from the initial comparisons to Stanley Kubrick’s now classic philosophy-over-science film, Moon bears similarities to more recent science fiction, namely television’s Lost. The two share an affinity for mysteries that unravel backwards and hidden clues (there’s even a secret hatch here!), and I would be surprised if director Duncan Jones were not a fan of the series. The mark of other sci-fi influences is in the look of the film. The mining station lacks the sleek feel of an idealized future, but rather features more industrial technology first seen in films like Ridley Scott’s Alien (no surprise considering Alien’s set designer was hired to work on this film). Throw in a haunting musical score and it all adds up to a darker vision of our imminent space age. Behind the Lunar Corporation’s promise of a better tomorrow is man pushing buttons and talking himself (figuratively and literally) in a station that could use a few repairs.

The directorial debut of commercial director Duncan Jones, son of David Bowie (I’ll avoid the “Starman” jokes”), Moon is an exciting film that acknowledges those that came before it while paving its own thought-provoking mythology. By the time the end credits roll, there are a few loopholes left unanswered, but the film remains a superb example of the best science fiction has to offer. This is Ground Control to Jones’s career: 3…2…1…Lift off! (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)

- Steve Avigliano, 7/13/09