See what critics are saying about the Jake Gyllenhaal-starring sci-fi film.By Eric Ditzian
Michelle Monaghan and Jake Gyllenhaal in "Source Code"
Photo: Summit Entertainment
The beginning of March brought us a well-reviewed sci-fi movie in "The Adjustment Bureau." The first day of April gifts us with a far superior, and deservedly better-reviewed, genre flick called "Source Code."
Here's the funny thing (and the enduring, head-scratching nature of the box office): The new movie, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, isn't likely to pull in more bucks over its opening weekend than Matt Damon's "Bureau" ($21.2 million). That's a shame, because more people than are expected to buy tickets — experts are predicting around $15 million in receipts — should check out "Source Code," the second feature from Duncan Jones ("Moon"). But don't just take it from us. Check out what the critics are saying about the film:
The Story
"Army Captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) awakens on a commuter train heading to Chicago, and doesn't know where he is. He finds the delightful Christina (Michelle Monaghan) sitting across from him. ... Colter doesn't know — and neither do we — that he's part of a highly classified military research project and has been sent into the immediate past to find out who bombed that train. The 'source code' — a kind of shorthand for computer shorthand — is given a breezy but satisfying enough explanation by its inventor (Jeffrey Wright), but what it does, basically, is provide Colter with an eight-minute window, in a parallel reality, to find the bomber and prevent what is expected to be a subsequent terrorist attack on Chicago itself." — John Anderson, The Wall Street Journal
The Performances
" 'Source Code' clicks along with swift, crisp tension, with Gyllenhaal delivering an assured lead performance as a man at once out of his depth and supremely self-assured. ... Indeed, it's the persuasive turns of all the cast members — within an otherwise preposterous setup — that allow filmgoers to surrender to the propulsive force of 'Source Code.' Monaghan and Farmiga are especially winning as the sympathetic women who coax Stevens along a path that, while preordained, he insists on twisting." — Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post
The Direction
" 'Source Code' is nimbly directed by Duncan Jones, whose 2009 'Moon' was probably the past decade's smartest, most ambitious science-fiction film. Although 'Source Code''s premise is a Philip K. Dick-style mindbender, Jones plays the story straight. The movie triggers memories of those classic Hitchcock suspense stories starring Jimmy Stewart or Cary Grant as a bystander abruptly thrust into life-or-death intrigue. Setting the action on a train gives the story a claustrophobic sense of urgency and a nice thematic resonance: Is Stevens' future also moving with unstoppable momentum on a fixed path?" — Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune
The Dissenters
" 'Source Code' can't help but come down with the conceptual sillies from time to time. The situation is so preposterous and the characters' attempts to explain it make for such bogus high-tech gobbledygook -- Jeffrey Wright does what he can with the stock role of the crippled Dr. Strangelove behind the experiment -- that you need a weed whacker just to keep sight of the plot. The movie plays with the metaphysics of time and causality, and it gives Gyllenhaal a big Sisyphean rock to push uphill over and over, but in no way does it enter the cosmically profound through the back door the way 'Groundhog Day' did." — Ty Burr, Boston Globe
The Final Word
"Superficially, 'Source Code' plays with some of the same themes as last month's 'The Adjustment Bureau.' But it's made with so much more skill and craft and impact that it's as if that other film were its made-for-TV doppelganger. This is hair-raising, clever and winning entertainment. Even if his protagonists aren't entirely what they seem to be or think they are, Mr. Jones is, it's increasingly clear, the real thing." — Shawn Levy, The Oregonian
Check out everything we've got on "Source Code."
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