#April2011

Source Code Gets Déjà Vu As It Quantum Leaps on Groundhog’s Day

There’s an early episode of Quantum Leap, it might even be the pilot, where Sam Beckett leaps into the past and, despite being warned not to by Al, calls his dad. In Source Code, director Duncan Jones delivers an obvious nod to this heavy Leap moment – even having Scott Bakula voice the dad of Jake Gyllenhaal’s Colter character. That great little moment in the film is just one of the reasons to give up an hour and half of your life and go see Source Code – despite it’s flawed final minutes.

Jones’ sophomore scifi effort (his first being 2009’s bitchin’ Moon) also features a male protagonist who should stop trusting “the man.” Colter is an army helicopter pilot who awakens to find himself on the Chicago commuter rail, sitting across from a woman he’s never met who keeps calling him Steve. Manic and confused, Colter tries to make of sense of his Twilight Zone plight…and that’s when the train blows up.

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