I have finally emerged from my Netflix coma (however briefly) to rediscover this moving picture nonsense. I decided to check out Source Code because Hanna wasn't out yet and--let's face it--everything else probably sucks. Director Duncan Jones' last film, Moon, was solid and Source Code honors its predecessor with its quality and its plot.
This whole article is a spoiler of both films, but as we all know, spoilers don't usually matter.
Moon is about a dude (Sam Rockwell) on the moon who's all by himself except for a creepy Kevin Spacey robot, whom you can't blame me for loving. He's trying to make contact with his family, but he can't get a signal (even Verizon doesn't work on the moon). He has an accident and wakes up to Kevin Spacey gently massaging him back to life. The Kevin Spacey robot acts shifty and its obvious that Sam Rockwell died in his accident and this is a new Sam Rockwell (or possibly just a revived Sam Rockwell, but we all know its always cloning or robots in sci-fi). At least half of viewers will call this a "twist" when Duncan finally spells it out for us. Sam Rockwell dies a bunch of times, finally contacts his family but pretends to be someone else, and the Kevin Spacey robot disobeys protocol in order to save at least one Sam Rockwell. The gist of the situation: a corporation is taking advantage of Sam Rockwell's clones to save money on training their employees (because cloning is apparently cheaper).
Source Code is about a dude (Jake Gyllenhaal) in some weird container-thingy who's all by himself except for his communication with a creepily evasive Vera Farmiga, whom you can't blame me for loving. He's trying to make contact with his father, but keeps getting distracted by the fact that Vera is repeatedly sending him to a train for eight minutes before it explodes. After his first excursion, he wakes up and Vera runs a program that helps him remember her name. Vera acts shifty and it becomes obvious very quickly that Jake is dead. At least 25% of viewers will call this a "twist" when Jake finally googles his name from the train. Jake Gyllenhaal dies a bunch of times, finally contacts his father but pretends to be someone else, and Vera disobeys her orders in order to save Jake Gyllenhaal. The gist of the situation: a government program is taking advantage of Jake Gyllenhaal in order to stop terrorism.
I'm just saying.
Of course, I'm just being a dick because I really don't have anything to complain about other than the fact that a scientist who can place people in alternate realities should be able to figure out that a memory wouldn't respond to stimuli unless it was the projection of Jake Gyllenhaal's subconscious. That's right, black, bearded scientist with a cane, we saw INCEPTION!!!!!... you can't fool us with your science.
7/10
Edit: Moon and Source Code are different in style. Moon is slow and dramatic, while Source Code is a quick-moving thriller. Both are well done. |
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