An Interesting and Unique Thriller

Rating: 7/10 (30 April 2011)

You have eight minutes to prevent the world from ending, but you have no idea where you are or why this huge responsibility is in your hands. What in the world do you do? Captain Colter Stevens is faced with this harrowing question and many more, and you'll find yourself looking for the answers with him in Source Code.
I think you'd be surprised to here that Source Code is a movie for everybody. If you're looking for action, Source Code is your movie, it seems like there's an explosion just about every eight minutes. (you liked that didn't you?)If you're looking for a movie that'll make you think, Source Code is without a doubt your movie. But you don't HAVE to think during Source Code, I think it's safe to say you can have a below average IQ and still enjoy it unlike other sci-fi thrillers like Inception.
When asked what Source Code's weakness is though, I'd have to say it really struggles with depth. Not only is there really no emotion in any of the characters, other then Gylenhall's, the film has a hard time helping us understand the characters at all. We touch bases with why the villain is doing what he/she is doing, but as interesting as it all sounds, we never truly understand him/her. To me, it's almost like Source Code decided to skip over this as if it was unimportant. And that same thing goes for all of the characters, not just the villain. A lot of the time you'll be asking yourself, why is this character doing this? Why don't they do this instead? So I guess what I'm saying is that in the end, the writing for Source Code is mediocre. It has it's high points but most of the time, it wasn't very good. It's an interesting premise and I can see were the writers were trying to get at with the main character and the villain and the plot in general, but it feels like it never really got there.
The good news is, there were a lot of things that bailed the writing out. Duncan Jones, the director of Moon, is great and I think he did a good job dealing with the bigger budget. He showed me that he can direct those big action sequences just as well as anybody out there. The cast also did a great job with what they were given. Jake Gylenhall has clearly come a long way since Donnie Darko. His haunting performance in Brothers stands out as one of his best ever. I think he did a great job portraying Colter Stevens in Source Code, but that he could have come away with an even better performance if he was faced with a character with a little more depth. The music was not what I expected and at first I didn't know how it was going to work with the film but it ended up making a lot of situations more intense and more emotional then they would have been without it.
In the end, there's no reason to be tough on Source Code. It's a very enjoyable, fast paced film and anyone can enjoy it. I was surprised that I had such a good time while watching it and I didn't regret picking it over Fast Five this weekend. Oh, and I was genuinely surprised that the movie went along without Gylenhall having to take his shirt off. . . sorry ladies!
***/*****