Source Code [Dir. Duncan Jones] (Full Price)
---- Spoilers from the trailer ahead----- A man wakes up on a strange train to a stranger calling him by another name with a certain amount of familiarity to it. He looks in a mirror to discover the reflection staring back at him is a complete stranger. As he stumbles around trying to figure out this mystery a bomb explodes instantly vaporizing him and all the other passengers on the train. Next thing he’s back in his own body in a strange capsule with a different strange voice talking to him by his name. From here, the mystery on what exactly he was doing in another man’s body and what this thing called the Source Code is unfolds in a brisk 90ish minute running time. I really enjoyed the plot to this movie, the further along this movie went, the more I found myself intrigued on what exactly the Source Code was and the effects it has on people. The plot is a bit of a mix between 12 Monkeys and Groundhog Day with a bit of originality thrown in. The one complaint I have from this movie is on the acting side. For the most part the acting is fairly solid, there’s just one actor who I thought carried his role as a mad scientist to a ridiculous extreme. Aside from that, this is one of the better if not the best film I’ve seen so far this year; I give this a solid Full Price.
Sucker Punch [Dir. Zack Snyder] (Some Old Smelly Shoes)
Baby Doll, wrongfully committed to a mental institution, escapes into her imagination to flee from the torments of her reality. Once in there, she teams up with other women in the asylum to try and figure out a way to escape from their imprisonment. This could have been an interesting movie, and for a while it was, but there was one big issue that killed this movie. There was a complete lack of character development for some of the important side characters in the real world. As a result, when the movie tries to shift focus to something involving those girls, it’s hard to care about them. I think that comes down to either lazy script writing or bad editing. It would’ve only taken a scene or two to flesh out those characters to get to know them. Instead the filmmakers were in such a hurry to escape from reality and bring on the visual effects that they neglected character development. The visual effects were fairly solid and the film did have Zack Snyder’s visual flair. That only saves the movie from getting my lowest rating and instead is just Some Old Smelly Shoes.
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