Source Code

Here's a great example of a movie that looks like it's going to be lots of fun. As a caveat, I'm a sucker for time travel of various kinds. When I first read Stephen King's "The Langoliers" (I'm not referring to the abominable movie that was made from it, but the original novella itself), I was stunned to see someone do something really fresh with the idea of time. See, books and stories should be fun, too, and that story blew me away.

The premise here looks just as cool. Yes, it has its antecedents. On some of the sites, I've seen people comparing it to Denzel Washington's film Deja Vu, but it looks a lot less gritty to me. It's got a bit of Millenium in it, a little bit of 12 Monkeys, and even a little bit of Groundhog Day (or rather 12:01, which was a less comical take on the same idea).

Here's how the official site describes Source Code:

When decorated soldier Captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) wakes up in the body of an unknown man, he discovers he's part of a mission to find the bomber of a Chicago commuter train. In an assignment unlike any he's ever known, he learns he's part of a government experiment called the "Source Code," a program that enables him to cross over into another man's identity in the last 8 minutes of his life. With a second much larger target threatening to kill millions in downtown Chicago, Colter re-lives the incident over and over again, gathering clues each time, until he can solve the mystery of who is behind the bombs and prevent the next attack.

More than the movies I mentioned above, this reminds me most of the single-season TV show Day Break, in which Taye Diggs' character relived the same day over and over, gathering more evidence each time through, until he was able to solve a mystery. But unlike that show, Stevens only has 8 minutes each time. Now that's a premise I can get behind. I definitely plan to review this movie when it comes out.