Blu-ray Movie Reviews

When soldier Captain Colter Stevens wakes up in the body of an unknown man, he discovers he's part of an experimental government program called the "Source Code" that enables him to cross over into another man's identity in the last 8 minutes of his life. Armed with the task of identifying the bomber of a Chicago commuter train, Colter must re-live the incident over and over again, gathering clues until he can solve the mystery and prevent an even deadlier second terrorist attack.

Source Code is a highly stylized sci-fi thriller that makes use of a lot of neat special effects tricks. These effects have varying degrees of effect on the HD image that some may or may not appreciate. Most notable is the glossing over of detail with some of the images and characters. Fine object detail is typically prevalent, especially in close ups of the actors, but at times you can see where things have been smoothed a bit by the special effects process. The film also has a pretty dark look with some noticeable crushing from time to time. Colors are slightly oversaturated, but this lends to the image and tone of the film. I didn’t notice any glaring issues from compression and banding was never an issue. The DTS-HD Master Audio mix is on the aggressive side with great dynamic range and sense of spatial design. The surrounds are nearly constantly engaged and provide a very convincing soundstage both on the train and off. Panning effects are convincing and the low end can be quite aggressive from time to time. The balance of the mix is outstanding and I never noticed a loss of intelligibility with dialogue at all, regardless of how frantic the rest of the mix got.

Extras are a bit limited but decent for what they are. There is a feature commentary with the cast and crew that provides decent insight into the film and its production. You also get a picture-in-picture feature that plays during the film and gives more insight into the production with behind the scenes info, interviews and more.

Source Code is a great sci-fi thriller that starts off fast and really never lets up. It serves up more heart than I was expecting and great performances from the entire cast. The A/V presentation is great and I would definitely recommend adding this one to the library!