Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Source Code (3 1/2 Stars - 4 Stars)



            What would you do with your life if you knew that you would only have eight minutes left to live? What would happen if you could go back in time and fix your problems? What if the life you knew was fake and that you've found the "creator" of the world? These are some of the questions offered in the philosophical, action thriller movie by Duncan Jones. At first, Duncan Jones seemed to make a pretty good indie movie on the moon. He studied Philosophy in college and decided to apply his learning into the two movies he's made.

            The movie starts out with a normal everyday situation with Colter Stevens as a passenger of a train that's about to go off by a hidden bomb. However, the conflict is, where is the bomb, the detonator, and who is the bomb maker or the one setting off the bomb? It turns out that Stevens was in a program called "Source Code." The program works with the last eight minute memory of a passenger, Sean Fentress, on the train and is replaced with Stevens. He could do anything in the span of those eight minutes, but must oblige to Quantum Physics, such as, he has to die in some way. Through this, he interrogates people, he finds a phone on the bomb and needs to finds the caller. He looks for suspicious people and looking for a weapon. Each of these scenarios offer us something new and it advances the story. All the while, Stevens finds out that he was in a crash and he wants to find the truth of his own existence.

            It's sad that it's only a program. If life was a program, then what's the point of living? This was what Stevens was going through. He could only tamper with the past in order to save the future. The past, however, is all gone. The events could not be changed. it could be repeated over and over again, but it cannot change. In the movie, Stevens falls for a woman passenger, Christina, and he vows to actually save her, even though she's already dead. It's also sad to believe that when you realize that the environment you live in doesn't exist and is only concocted by higher beings, then you would have to rethink at the point and purpose of living. This movie is interesting because Stevens can reason with the people from Source Code. He tries to reason with them, and even bargains for an ultimatum.

            This movie is a fantasy movie. Basically, what I'm saying is that it's a movie that we wish we could be a part of. In the movie, Groundhog Day, the main character has to relive the same day over and over again. Because of this, he takes advantage of it, he suffers, and he changes. This is what also happens in Source Code. Stevens would make mistakes and have the opportunity to learn from them and fix them. He has the opportunity to be a hero of a story that doesn't really matter. He had the ability to listen to his parents as they heard the news of his death. The ending, especially was what truly made it a good fantasy piece. (Spoiler) In the end, he requested to die after he does one final mission. In this last simulation, he stops the bomb, stops the bomb maker, and he gets the girl. As the plug was pulled, his life ends and pauses on a kiss. A single moment stuck in time was what made it touching.

            The Cloud Gate, the sculpture shown at the end of the film, represents the infinite possibilities of you seeing your reflection. The movie emphasizes on the infinite possibilities of an alternative universes that Stevens has to go through. It also represents the unpredictability of the film. In this movie, there are many Red Herrings, and dead ends.

            Alfred Hitchcock said that suspense is not about a bomb blowing up from underneath a table. Suspense is the fact that you know that there's a bomb under the table and you don't know when it's going to go off. In this movie, I could care less about the style of the explosion and focus on the meaning. Nowadays, visual directors focus on the fireworks rather than why they're shooting them in the sky. In this movie, the way suspense is generated is by the eight minute countdown to the bomb, disarming the bomb, or waiting for the inevitable. The movie is not much of an action movie, nor is it a movie about a bomb that's about to blow up. It's more of a character's journey towards finding out the truth externally, as well as internally.

            The trailer does no justice to this movie at all. It shows "Source Code" as a cheap thriller that looked recycled. The movie didn't have much interest to the public audience because it was, quote on quote, original. I highly recommend this movie. Get some fresh air, and watch something that's original. 

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