Source Code: The Next Deja Vu?

Source Code looks set to be one one of the Spring 2011 highlights but might as well prove a blockbuster that doesn’t really bust it other than for the fans of stories on altered realities – like Inception. As compelling a movie it was, it didn’t quite rival the hype James Cameron’s Avatar triggered.

Decorated soldier Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) keeps waking up in the body of a stranger, every time re-living the last eight minutes of the unknown man’s life to find the bomber of a Chicago commuter train. Stevens is part of a government experiment called the “Source Code”, that enables him to go back in time and cross over into the body of the stranger. His mission is to gather clues until he can solve the mystery of who is the behind the bombing and prevent the next attack which would kill millions.

Source Code could be an intelligent mash-up of story ideas that have been over-performing in the last decades. The movie seems to take Groundhog Day (1993) to a new level by cutting it down to eight minutes and certainly taking the fun out of it. Saving the day and lives by re-living a part of one’s life paired with time loops, hi tech mystery and the omnipresent fear of terrorist attacks surely is a mix made for success.

Not least since Stevens not only wants to save the world but also the woman he meets in his body-switching flashbacks. Christina (Michelle Monaghan, Due Date & Mission: Impossible III) is the one worth ‘dying’ for again and again. Let’s hope Stevens can change that. Otherwise it wouldn’t be the happy-ending rescue mission against all odds and the laws of nature we saw brilliantly executed in the terror and love stories Deja Vu (2006) and Next (2007).

The script is written by Ben Ripley whose track record includes Species III (2004) and Species: The Awakening (2007), movies that in the end didn’t really hit the heights of storytelling. Director Duncan Jones made himself a name with the excellent Moon (2009) and seems to be the right man for a story that involves character comebacks and science fiction.

I hope Source Code will offer a new take on the possibilities of altering reality before things actually become a reality, without getting carried away by technological complexities or playing too much on the present paranoia. That technology is far more advanced than we are made to believe, that we already know.

» Watch the trailer and let us know what you think!