Source Code: Make every second count, by checking this movie out!

US Army helicopter pilot Colter Stevens wakes up on a commuter train in Chicago. His last memories were of flying sorties in Afghanistan but soon he realizes not only is back in the United States, but he has also assumed the identity of another man. Eight minutes later his train blows up but he does not die, he awakens to discover himself in a pod where a woman named Goodwin tells him he must go back to that train and stop the bomb from blowing it up or else the entire town of Chicago will be destroyed.

Source Code was another example of a sci-fi thriller that not only attempted to blow the audience away with its high tech premise, but also use that unconventional storyline to explore the human condition.

The futuristic premise, which featured Gyllenhaal's Stevens reliving another man's reality in order to stop a terrorist attack on Chicago, might seemed far fetched but writer Ben Ripley and director Duncan Jones did it right by setting the story in modern times. This grounded the story in a reality that the audience was acutely aware of. Ripley and Jones also did a good job of roping the audience into the plot by keeping the mystery of who planted the bomb and their ultimate motives in foregound of the story, not buried in the back in favor of more special effects bells and whistles.

The story was intriguing (some have described it as Groundhog Day meets 12 Monkeys) but what truly set it apart from other films (sci-fi or otherwise) was the humanity Jake Gyllenhaal brought to his role. If handled in the wrong way the film could have easily become laughably cheesy, like Jean Claude Van Damme's Timecop, in that the action would have swallowed the narrative whole. But Gyllenhaal brought emotion and soul to his performance, a set of talents sadly lacking in most action heroes nowadays. Through his struggles in trying to understand just what was expected of him in his attempts to locate that bomb, he came to realize a number of things about his life, deeper personal realizations which caused him to rethink and question just who he was and what he stood for. Source Code challenged the audience to rethink along with Gyllenhaal, a quality not seen in most recently released films.

Source Code is an intelligent and emotionally satisfying sci-fi thriller that you should not miss.

Grade: B+

The Adjustment Bureau: The choice is yours (maybe!)

Politician David Norris is on the brink of winning a seat in the U.S. Congress when he has a chance encounter with a beautiful ballerina named Elise. As David begins to fall for her he realizes that there is a group - The Adjustment Bureau - who will do everything in their considerable power to keep them apart.

While The Adjustment Bureau attempted to mirror the “Bourne” films which Matt Damon starred in, it lacked the dynamic action and comprehensiveness in story/plot that made those movies modern action classics. This is not to say that it was not a good film, Damon was certainly convincing in his role as David Norris and he shared excellent chemistry with Emily Blunt’s Elise Sellas. That chemistry was important if the audience was to buy into their characters and the struggles they went through to fight against “the plan” that the evil (or maybe not, guess it’s how one views the film as a whole) Bureau had for them. The plot for the film (it was based upon a short story by Philip K. Dick) presented quite an interesting twist for a sci-fi action story as it made the audience ponder if humans can choose their own fate or if everything was predetermined in their lives. It's rare for the audience to have to think at the multi-plex nowadays, so this thought provoking story was a nice surpise. Writer/Director George Nolfi did his best to not only keep the audience engaged in the complexity presented with the story but also ratcheted up the tension and blended in some (but not enough) action while at the same time building the bond between David and Elise, however he neglected to give the fedora wearing members of the Bureau any depth and left many things regarding their role in the universe of the film unexplained.

Ultimately The Adjustment Bureau provided the audience a change in pace with its provocative story but lacked the action to make it a memorable sci-fi thriller.

Grade: C+