Summary
- With high stakes and a gripping plot, Source Code exceeded box office expectations.
- The unique time travel concept in Source Code gives the story depth and authenticity.
- Despite critical acclaim, Source Code remains overlooked and underrated in the time travel film genre.
Time travel is a challenge, but Source code with Jake Gyllenhaal is ridiculously underrated considering how well it builds a story around time travel. Science fiction as a genre is known for pushing boundaries and being experimental with its stories. Because of this, things like challenging time and the natural laws of physics can be adequately explored through this medium in a semi-realistic format.
However, not all time travel films are the same. For every brilliant classic like Back to the futurethere are a dozen or more that suffer from either over- or under-complications of this practice. But a time travel movie already starts outside of reality, which means it can explore the dynamic and interesting ways this can affect a story. Source codea 2011 film, did just that with shock, wonder and amazement.
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Jake Gyllenhaal is one of the most popular actors of his generation and has been since his early twenties thanks to films like Donnie Darko. Although Gyllenhaal has performed in several genres with great success, he seems to shine brightest in thriller films. This is especially true of 2014’s Nightcrawler, in which Gyllenhaal delivers his best performance. The film is incredibly intense and suspenseful and Gyllenhaal has proven that he can play a psychopath brilliantly.
Gyllenhaal’s Source Code is a time loop film with high stakes
Exciting sci-fi action in source code
Source Code grossed a respectable $140 million at the box office (via The numbers), which far exceeded the original budget of $32 million. And the film managed to get rave reviews, earning it a 92% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes from critics and a strong 82% from audiences. This is clearly a result of the The exciting plot of the filmand thrilling action throughout. The film is about a confused agent who wakes up on a bullet train to find he is in someone else’s body. The film quickly reveals what is going on when the man and the agent in his body die in a train crash.
Jake Gyllenhaal plays Agent Colter Stevens, a man who appears to be involved in a new experimental government program designed to prevent terrorist attacks. Using a machine that recreates eight minutes of time before such a tragedy, someone can be sent back to understand the perspective of one of the deceased and try to gather new information. Stevens returns again and again and only eight minutes to solve the puzzle The pressure is enormous every time and the film is exciting from start to finish.
How time travel works in source code
The rules of time travel
Source code is both the name of the film and the name of the machine used to activate this time regression. Like a super slow motion camera, the machine is able to store the previous block of data that was entered as soon as the machine is activated. The machine then stores this mass of data, which consists of everything that has happened in the last eight minutes, and creates a virtual reproduction of the same events. Then someone, like Stevens, can be sent back to live vicariously through another person’s consciousness and explore the event for eight minutes.
Instead of a traditional jump forward and backward, those eight minutes and everything that happened afterward exist, but they can be accessed and modified in the source code. This is a great twist on the traditional time travel storyand the film continues to show additional ways in which this machine can influence and do things, outside of its original programming. All in all, it is an exciting and extremely well-crafted film. From the story to the acting to the twists along the way, Source code is greatly underestimated for what it does.
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Source Code is one of the most underrated time travel films
While many time travel films that receive praise have become iconic and classic examples of the science fiction genre, Source code seems to have slipped under the radar. Although the first theatrical release was decent, it failed to make the film a household name. This could be due to lack of marketing budget, but whatever happened, it meant that an incredible time travel movie never got the attention it deserved.
The plot is full of action and suspense, and the new take on time travel creates something that feels authentic and meaningful that many other time travel films don’t. Source code builds on the traditional concepts of time travel and science fiction with advanced technology and simulation in a way that works perfectly for the film and deserves more respect. In addition, Jake Gyllenhaal plays his role perfectly and proves why he is a star ideal to star in reality-warping films of Donnie DarkoTo Spider-Man: Far From Homeand beyond.
Source code
4.5
Source Code is a science fiction thriller starring Jake Gyllenhaal as Army Captain Colter Stevens, who is stuck in a simulated eight-minute time loop where a train explodes at the end of time. Disoriented, Colter wakes up in a pod every time the simulation resets, learning that the explosion was real. He is sent into the scenario repeatedly to find out the truth behind the bombing – but the truth behind the experiment may be even darker than he expected.
- director
- Duncan Jones
- Release date
- 1 April 2011
- Studio(s)
- Universal Images
- Sales Partner
- Universal Pictures, Summit Entertainment
- Authors
- Ben Ripley
- Duration
- 93 minutes
- budget
- 32 million US dollars
- Main genre
- Secret
