When I was leaving my screening of Source Code tonight, I overheard someone saying that this movie was better when it was called Quantum Leap.

I thought that was appropriate summary. For those that don’t know about Quantum Leap. it was a TV show in the late 80s to early 90s. It was about a man who would “leap” into another person’s life during different years and alter something for the better. Scott Bakula was in that TV show and coincidentally played a small role in Source Code.

So the basic premise of Source Code is that Captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) has 8 minutes to figure out where a bomb is on a commuter Chicago train and who is the bomber.

The catch is that the bombing of the train has already happened and everyone on board has been killed. Stevens is part of a program called Source Code and he enters the train as one of the passengers, Sean Fentiss, a teacher. Explaining what Source Code is confusing and a bit spoilery so I won’t say anythin.

Each time Stevens goes back to the train for the 8 minutes he starts to slowly figure out the pieces he needs not to prevent the bombing but to stop an impending terrorist attack to downtown Chicago. While he is on the train, he makes a connection with one of the passengers, a colleague of Sean’s, Christina (Michelle Monaghan).

Overseeing Steven’s mission is Goodwin (Vera Farmiga) and the project leader Dr. Rutledge (Jeffrey Wright).

The way Source Code presented the different 8 minutes could have been repetitive and annoying like Vantage Point was but credit to director Duncan Jones for not repeating the same sequences over and over again but offered a different spin.

There was one moment in the film that was so reminiscent of the movie Groundhog Day and the diner scene where Bill Murray knew with amazing accuracy what was going to happen. People chuckled during that scene which I am sure we aren’t suppose to or maybe we were.

Comedian Russell Peters was on hand to lead very brief comic relief and I think Monaghan was fine in her role as not necessarily a damsel in distress but as someone that Stevens wants to try and save her from the doomed train.

Wright was over the top as Rutledge and when he was walking with that cane I felt he was channeling Dr. Weaver from TV’s ER. And there was one scene where he seemed gleeful but came across like a greedy Gollum in the way he delivered the lines.

Farmiga was fine too but she really didn’t have much of a role and some of the dialogue or in fact all of the dialogue tended to be corny.

And as the movie veered towards its conclusion things got introduced made the film confusion and the end also was jumbled that when the lights came up after the end credits rolled my face was scrunched up in confusion as to what happened.