A totally
unexpected trailer to cap off the boatload of them we've been offered this week as Summit Entertainment unveil
Duncan Jones' sci-fi action-thriller
Source Code, which has been on everyone's radar's for a while now because it's the Brit director's big studio follow-up to last year's
Moon. The premise is that of
Groundhog Day meets
Twelve Monkeys sprinkled with a bit of
Deja Vu.
Jake Gyllenhaal stars a soldier on a Government experimental program where technology has been invented that can transport a human inside another person's body during the last 8 minutes of their life. On this particular day - Gyllenhaal is transported into the body of an unknown commuter just 8 minutes before one of the passengers is supposed to blow up the train. Gyllenhaal keeps replaying these 8 minutes and blowing up in the process until he can stop the terrorist, and save the woman he has formed a connection with. Immediately I wondered whether he could do this until the end of time but the ticking clock here is that in real-time a terrorist attack has been threatened six hours in the future and the culprit is believed to be the same as the train bomber, which gives Gyllenhaal only a limited amount of time to find his man before he strikes again. BUT WAIT... if he fails why can't Gyllenhaal then go back to that second Source Code and the last 8 minutes of someone else's life? Ouch, my head hurts. Here's the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKtr9ZAooc8 Of course the major problem the film has is the replay factor as essentially it's an 8 minute scene that is replayed to us in a few varying ways, so there's the tiresome factor. There's nothing worse than a film that shows us the same scene from slightly different vantage points (including the film - Vantage Point), and it takes a smart film like Groundhog Day, which played it funny, to keep it interesting. Also there's little room for character growth. If Andie McDowell couldn't forge much of a character in GD, then what can
Michelle Monaghan, who plays a female passenger, bring to the table as presumably 99% of her scenes will be on this train...
Supporting roles here are taken by
Vera Farmiga and
Jeffrey Wright, who are both part of the Government agency and are basically the exposition characters so we know what the hell is going on.
Ben Ripley (
Species III) wrote the script which was re-written by
Billy Ray (
State Of Play). I'm intrigued but not entirely blown away by the trailer. I'm not certain the premise (which at least is a thinking man's movie) is one that has enough mystery about it that is going to keep me hooked but I am excited to see how Jones handles his first mainstream fare. I'm also very curious about Gyllenhaal, as I've been less than kind to his work over the past five years, especially any movie that pushes him forward as a hero.
The film also feels very similar to Matt Damon and Emily Blunt's delayed sci-fi movie
The Adjustment Bureau - which opens March 4th worldwide from Universal. Summit are releasing Source Code just one week later in the U.K. on March 11th, but not until a month later in the U.S. Gonna be interesting to see how they all perform against each other.