Inception Part II: The Better Source

Rating: 9/10 (10 April 2011)

Yeah..I know. I know. I'll get heat for this one, but Source Code is so much better than and the movie I thoroughly expected from Inception.
Was it the hype for Inception I heard for the two months it took me to see that after it was released? Eh, I can get past that. And Inception wasn't a bad movie, but it didn't impress me than this admittedly smaller, but more entertaining sci-fi thriller.
Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) awakes on a train headed towards Chicago and he's unsure how he got there. (I can relate, but mine's usually an unfamiliar beduh) And within eight minutes, the whole thing explodes! And that's just within the first eight minutes of the movie!
Next, Colter awakes in a pod with Colleen Goodwin (played the always fantastic Vera Farmiga) asking him questions on a screen while telling him his "frivolous" inquires on where he is/why he's there are irrelevant and he's wasting time. Well, if you didn't know how you got on a train one minute and in a pod the next and you thought you were supposed to be serving your country in Afghanistan – oh, I left that part out: he's a soldier – then you might be a bit puzzled yourself.
And repeat. He's constantly sent back to the train scene where his "mission" is to find out who's the mad bomber within eight minutes so Colleen and her military gang can prevent another attack – one that's actually in downtown Chicago. Only, we've sent a human to do a computer's job, à la: the Robocop syndrome. He falls for Christina Warren (played by – again – the always fantastic Michelle Monaghan – I wish we could see more of her), a woman Colter keeps seeing once he's "magically" transported back onto the train while he's inhibiting a body of a victim who's fate will be sealed (yet again) in eight minutes.
There's a lot more, and it would be hard to write a synopsis without blatant spoilers. Suffice to say, expect a lot of twists and on the edge of your seat suspense, EVEN when they supposedly solved the "problem." Literally, even though the movie could've ended 15 minutes before the finale, I was still on edge because humans always seem to mess things up, even when they "won." And lo, I was thoroughly surprised and pleased with the conclusions.
Much like Moon, Director Duncan Jones made such a "small" film seem so large. I can absolutely see this making only a third of what Inception made, and that's okay. Avatar made TRILLIONS (not really, but anything over $100 million was unjustified) and that doesn't make that anywhere near the top of hardly anyone's best movies lists. I can absolutely see this movie making my own top ten of 2011 (at least.) And it's so short that, it's an easy movie to watch repeatedly.
Strictly for entertainment purposes only, Source Code, a more serious and more relevant (for today's time) Groundhog Day experiment, is a must-see. The performances of the two leading ladies were very good and Jake – eh – was still good, but the idea, originality, twists, fun and absolute suspense make this a train ride everyone should be all-aboard. (Dang, that was cheesy. Hope that doesn't make the poster and deter viewers)