Source Code: Inception Meets The Matrix Meets Quantum Leap = The First Big Thriller of 2011

Rating: 9/10 (2 April 2011)

I saw Source Code this afternoon, in a lightly-populated theater for the first matinée showing of the day.
Source Code is one of those movies that you really can't explain or talk to anyone else about unless you've seen it.
It's a very good film, along the same general lines of Inception and The Matrix trilogy, with a sprinkling of (and more than the tip of the proverbial hat) to Quantum Leap and a dash of The Adjustment Bureau along with a smidgen of Deja Vu for flavor. And, it's got more than a little bit of Groundhog Day mixed in.
Throw all that together, mix in some excellent acting by Jake Gyllenhaal (probably his best performance to date) and Michelle Monaghan, a tight, well-paced script by Ben Ripley and some very spare, stripped down, focused direction from Duncan Nolan and you get Source Code, a movie Philip K. Dick would have written and directed, if he'd ever tried his hand at such.
Gyllenhall plays a soldier, fresh from the war in Afghanistan, who wakes up in the body of another man and discovers (through various twists and turns, some predictable, others not) that he's the only one who can find out who placed the bomb on the train he and Monaghan are riding before that person inflicts an even bigger atrocity on the city of Chicago.
And he's got eight minutes.
The result is an hour and a half of thrill-a-minute action, a roller-coaster ride that will keep you guessing about some of its twists and turns, and an all around great movie.
Two thumbs up on this one. It's very definitely worth seeing and I'll be getting the Blu-Ray when it comes out later on this summer.