Jake Gyllenhaal’s Time Travel Movie With 92% On Rotten Tomatoes Added A Genius Twist To The Groundhog Day Trope (2024)

Time travel is a challenging thing to do right, but Source Code starring Jake Gyllenhaal is ridiculously underrated considering how well it builds a story around time travel. Sci-fi as a genre is known for its ability to push the envelope and be experimental with its stories. For this reason, things like defying time, and the natural laws of physics can be properly explored in a semi-realistic format through the medium.

However, not all time travel movies are created equally. For every brilliant classic like Back to the Future, there are a dozen or more that suffer from either over or under complications of the practice. But, a time travel movie is already starting outside the realms of reality, which means it's free to explore the dynamic and interesting ways this can impact a story. Source Code, a 2011 movie, did just that with shock, wonder, and amazement.

Gyllenhaal’s Source Code Is A Time Loop Movie With High Stakes

Thrilling Sci-Fi Action In Source Code

Source Code pulled in a respectable $140 million at the box office (via The Numbers), which far exceeded the initial $32 million budget. And, the movie managed to get rave reviews, which resulted in a 92% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes from critics and a strong 82% from audiences. This is clearly a result of the movie's high-stakes plot, and thrilling action throughout. Following a confused agent who awakens on a speeding train only to find that he is in someone else's body, the movie quickly divulges what is going on when the man and the agent in his body die in a train crash.

Jake Gyllenhaal plays agent Colter Stevens, a man who appears to be involved in a new experimental program from the government to help avert terrorist attacks. With the aid of a machine that recreates eight minutes of time before such a tragedy, someone can be sent back to see through one of the deceased's points of view and try to gather new information. With Stevens repeatedly going back, and only having eight minutes to solve the mystery each time, the pressure is intense, and the movie is thrilling from start to finish.

How Time Travel Works In Source Code

The Rules Of Time Travel

Source Code is both the name of the movie, and the name given to the machine used to activate this time regression. Like a super slow motion camera, the machine is capable of storing the previous chunk of data that was input once the machine is activated. The machine then stores this mass of data, which consists of everything that happened in the previous eight minutes, and creates a virtual reproduction of those same events. Then, someone, like Stevens, can be sent back to live vicariously through the consciousness of someone in the event, and explore for eight minutes.

Rather than a traditional leap forward and back, those eight minutes exist, and everything since then exists, but they can be accessed and altered in the source code. This is a great twist on the traditional time travel story, and the movie continues to exhibit additional ways that this machine is able to impact and effect things, outside its original programming. All together, it makes for an exciting and extremely well laid out film. From the story, to the acting, and the twists along the way, Source Code is severely underappreciated for what it does.

Source Code Is One Of The Most Underrated Time Travel Movies

While many time travel movies that receive praise have become iconic and classic examples of the sci-fi genre, Source Code appears to have slipped under the radar. While the initial theatrical release was decent, it failed to make the movie a household name. This may have been down to a lack of marketing budget, but whatever happened, it meant that an incredible time travel movie never got the attention that it deserved.

The plot has action and suspense built in, while the new take on time-travel creates something that feels authentic and meaningful in a way that many other time travel movies don't. Source Code builds on the traditional concepts of time travel and sci-fi with advanced technology and simulation, in a way that works perfectly for the feature and deserves more respect. In addition, Jake Gyllenhaal plays his role to perfection, proving why he is a star that is ideal to appear in reality-bending films from Donnie Darko, to Spider-Man: Far From Home, and beyond.

Source Code

4.5

PG-13

Action

Drama

Mystery

Where to Watch

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Source Code is a sci-fi thriller that stars Jake Gyllenhaal as an Army Captain named Colter Stevens who finds himself stuck in an eight-minute simulated time loop where a train explodes at the end of the timer. Disoriented and waking up in a capsule every time the simulation resets, Colter learns that the explosion was real. He is sent into the scenario repeatedly to discover the truth behind the bombing - but the truth behind the experiment may be even darker than he was prepared for.

Director

Duncan Jones

Release Date

April 1, 2011

Studio(s)

Universal Pictures

Distributor(s)

Universal Pictures , Summit Entertainment

Writers

Ben Ripley

Cast

Jake Gyllenhaal , Michelle Monaghan , Vera Farmiga , Jeffrey Wright , Michael Arden , Cas Anvar , Russell Peters , Brent Skagford

Runtime

93 Minutes

Budget

$32 million

Main Genre

Mystery