Review: Source Code

4.0

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Read our review of Source Code, the new sci-fi thriller from Duncan Jones...

How dead are we the moment we “die”? Can there be a reversal code, or at least a way to use what’s left of us for some good? I mean, the brain is a magnificent device – so is it possible to tap into a different reality even after someone has passed away just using some algorithm?

Captain Colter Stevens wakes up in a train heading to Chicago talking to a stranger who keeps referring to him as Sean, a teacher, and telling him details of days and events that he can’t recognize. He’s either lost his memory or he’s been dropped into a virtual reality where he cannot recognize anyone or anything. Several encounters later, the train gets bombed and Captain Stevens or “Sean” is brought back to a mysterious “capsule” where he is communicating with an Air Force Captain (Goodwin).

Captain Goodwin then reluctantly tries to explain to “Sean” what’s happening to him – but the clock is ticking and the saving of millions of lives depends on the success of the ‘Source Code’.

So what is the Source Code? How does it work? What does it achieve? These are question that you will find answers to watching the film - even before wanting to find the answers; you’ll find yourself immersed in this alternate reality that keeps occurring scene after scene after scene.

The movie almost feels like Groundhog Day met 24 and had a brilliant idea. Time is not on Stevens’ side but does it really matter if he was actually dead? Is it more important to save some wacky science project than to find eternal peace? So many ethical and sometimes existential questions are raised in such a short period of time – which is supposedly not a tough thing to write – but what writer Ben Ripley manages to do is develop a script both intelligent and engaging without getting the audience lost.

Source Code is a great sci-fi, thriller, mystery film which deals with deeper issues than what appears at first sight – but it’s also a wonderfully gripping film which doesn’t forget about its characters for the sake of ‘action’.

WATCH THE TRAILER HERE

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