Intelligent Sci-Fi Action That Doesn't Slow Down

Rating: 8/10 (23 September 2011)

In the not-at-all-distant future, the US military runs a trial of their new take on time travel. Through a loosely-explained implementation of cutting edge technology, they're able to insert an unwitting agent into the near past, where he then relives the eight minutes immediately preceding a terrorist attack over and over again, desperately seeking suspects and answers. I'm typically a big fan of this style of high-concept science fiction flicks, and for the great majority of its running time, Source Code manages to continuously one-up itself in that respect. The film doesn't shy away from delivering powerful, surprising answers as events play themselves out, while a deep, complex script ensures there's always a new mystery to pick up where the last one left off. With that nice juicy carrot always dangling just out of reach and a breakneck pace from start to finish, this plays more like an intense, brilliant short film and not the feature-length offering it actually is. Though an awkward, mismatched happy ending does sour things to a certain extent, the sharp curves it navigates before running into that brick wall won't easily be forgotten.