Source Code

A new Sci-Fi thriller from writer Ben Ripley was released April 1st in Canada this year and I had the privilege of giving it a viewing.  Directed by UK born Duncan Jones (Moon) and staring American actors  Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan and Vera Farmiga, general audiences are presented with a challenging story about a mans ability to overcome psychological limitations for the greater good of national security.


We begin with Gyllenhaal awaking on a commute train to find himself uncertain of his surroundings and presence. There is an attractive woman sitting accross from him who speaks to him on a level of personal understanding that confuses Gyllenhaal as the context of conversation is lost with our main character. We quickly identify that our protagonist does not know this person and her conversation with him becomes a mystery. She insists that his name is "Shawn" and Gyllenhaal takes moments to get a hold on his predicament. The film throws us a violent conclusion to this scene by destroying the train and killing all of our characters. We begin again as Gyllenhaal awakes in what appears to be some type of capsule. Through video interface he is asked a series of questions about his experience on the train. He is asked to recall any details about the train and most importantly, who planted the bomb. Instructions are given to go back to the train and uncover as many details about the incident to uncover an act of terrorism. As the film continues, the mystery further unravels. This movie is an excellent and intelligent popcorn thriller. It contains solid performances by Gyllenhaal and the overall feel of the film easily draws you into it's drama and mystery. I appreciate films that challenge their audiences and reward them for sticking around. This flick gets a 7.5 out of 10.

Battle Los Angeles

A movie where substance is the Achilles heel and style is the knife that cuts it.  

Before we begin:  The cinematography in this movie is terrible. Its like watching a film-school students attempt at emulating the visual prowess of Man on Fire or Domino. The pans are nonsensicle and awkward.  Its impossible to follow dialog because you're constantly looking for the characters holding the conversation.  It's as if they cut the scenes of dialog together with footage from a b-roll and threw everything in a blender.


Anyways, the plot:

The movie follows a marine squad who have been deployed in Los Angeles to help defend against an unknown threat in lieu of a meteor shower that has not only targeted California but has impacted over 17 different countries. We soon understand the meteor shower to be of an invasion and watch what was once a prosperous metropolis reduce to rubble. Sounds like an outstanding formula for tried but true success? Sadly the movie goes out on a limb to try something different.  This is applaudable but the effort suffers from this key-point: the movie is not an invasion film.  There is little attention made to the fact of invasion where the main focus is on the mentality of the squad stopping an invasion. There was no element of surprise or element of awe when watching this as a sci-fi film. When you watch this movie keep that in mind.  This is a war film.  Like Saving Private Ryan or Thin Red Line.  In fact, the architecture of this movie is so focused on the mentality of military tactic and survival that you could easily replace the aliens with red coats or al-queda and there would have been no harm in the overall integrity of this movie.


The character development is good and if you watch this movie for the first 25 minutes you will find it pretty enjoyable. But once the action hits the screen you will notice those expensive cg sequences that are shown in the trailer transform poorly on the big screen as they appear messy by means of hyperactive cinematography and feral editing that will baffle and harm you. Who are they shooting at? From which direction are they being shot from? Is that someones watch? Oh look its a redcoat!  There are many times I had to close my eyes or turn my head away from the picture to avoid being overwhelmed by fast cutting and shoddy camera work.  Its unfortunate and apparent that whoever was sitting in the editing room has a serious gap in basic concentration.  This made the viewing experience so difficult to sit through - especially in the sought after action sequences.  And then there's the dialog.. If it weren't for the editing then we would have had a dialog that made more sense.  But, because of confusing camera and editing work the dialog is often awkward.  It's not that the actors are under-performing or that the script was written poorly, because they weren't, and apart from not being an Alien Invasion genre movie.. The script isn't all that bad either.   But, unfortunately the zooming, panning and quick Tony Scott like cutting has you playing "Where's Waldo?".  

The Score:
Going into this movie with 0 expectations I was able to start out with 10 points.  
+Good introduction
+Good character development
+Impressive CG
- After about 25 minutes of runtime the movie quickly falls apart because of poorly implemented editing and camera work.
- About 1 hour into the movie and you start to appreciate a movie that employs good editing and camera work for the sake of the portraying the actors ability to perform a roll and good dialog.
- The editing.

- The editing.

- The editing.

- Hyper-Active cinematography prevents enjoyment from visual eye-candy.

- The last 30 minutes of the movie had me writing this review.

The Verdict?
I could bet you a steak dinner that the editor and cinematographer were film students studying Tony Scotts later films and this piece of $!#@ was the midterm project.


Don't watch this movie.


3/10