At one time, I truly believed my car was haunted. No, seriously. I don't believe in curses or ghosts or any of that supernatural mumbo-jumbo, but it was the only way to assess the inexplicably random instances where my car alarm would go off. At first it was whenever I stuck my key in the lock, so I installed an wireless unlocking system. If I didn't press the button for exactly three-and-a-half seconds, the alarm would go off again. Anything set that motherfucker off: a fallen leaf brushing its hood; somebody commenting on the nice interior; during the final seconds of the series finale of Lost. Hell, one time I just looked at my car and it went off. Eventually I traded it in due to sleep deprivation. Which leads us right into our movie this week:
Source Code stars Jake Gyllenhall in his most confusing movie since Donnie Darko. Hell, Duncan Jones makes Richard Kelly look like the less-talented Farrelly Brother with this one. Gyllenhall, who accepted the role as Darko earlier in his career and is now a stud, must have looked at this script and shit his pants thinking it was the latest Kelly atrocity to piss off moviegoers. However, since it was Jones, in his follow-up to 2009's much beloved Moon, he must have thought Jones was going to put on some aesthetic touches to make it watchable.
He was right, but watchable is my best possible compliment. While Moon told a tale of psychologically deteriorating turmoil, Source Code merely leaves character development and mind-games on the horizon. The best comparison I can make is to The Fountain, except Gyllenhall never shaves his head. It's a beautiful and strange journey that serves more as an intoxicating, mind-numbing drug used to arouse the senses than a film that would spark a wave of critical essays breaking down its underlying themes and political statements (and thank God for that).
Watchable sounds bad, but hell, this movie is incompre-fucking-hensible plot-wise, so who cares that Gyllenhall must retrieve a forgotten password that will destroy half of Japan from the dead captain of the Titanic's ghost? It's a dazzling scene featuring Gyllenhall weaving through endless streams of dazzling-colored coral stretches and Synodontidaes as he approaches the long-lost wreckage.
Oh, sorry, I might want to back up. You're undoubtedly confused. I know it doesn't sound like the trailer, which does make up the first 15 minutes of the film, only to never return. But to be honest, that convoluted mess of a situation would have never been solved. Jones was quoted in Variety saying that once he had written the first dozen pages of the script, he stopped and said to himself, "What the fuck am I doing?" Jones regards himself as a trooper, however, and "refused to give up." Jeez, you'd think he'd at least rewrite it? I mean, it's not like he was wasting a bunch of paper or something.
Some of you might even be screaming, "Don't tell me what fucking happens you hack!" Firstly, I must say that any scene I describe in this review really won't spoil much. This particular scene I've described last only two minutes in this two-hour endeavor. Each scene moves abruptly, but also in a seamlessly pleasing manner, from scenario to scenario. As soon as I was about to say, "what the fuck was that?" I became intoxicated with what new unexplored universe Jones was offering up. It wasn't until the end of the film that I realized I was drooling all over my shirt.
Anyway, you can take the movie as it is or leave it. However, I hope Jones enjoyed the Aronofskian style-over-substance trip while it lasted, because Source Code cost an estimated $316 million to make, edging just past Avatar and exceeding its original budget by $275 million. And, as somebody from the fucking future, take my word for it: it doesn't quite break even at the box office.
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