DVD reviews: Source Code | The extraordinary adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec
THIS modest but high-concept sci-fi thriller should elevate Moon director Duncan Jones another few notches up the Holywood ladder. Jake Gyllenhaal plays a soldier forced to relive the same eight minutes on a passenger train in order to discover who is responsible for blowing it up. Though it owes an obvious debt to Groundhog Day, the film earns its sci-fi stripes by introducing a military experiment involving "time reassignment" in which time can be turned back, but events can't be altered. This inevitably starts to bug Gyllenhaal's hero, especially as he starts to fall for the woman (Michelle Monaghan) sitting opposite him. As with most time travel films, plot holes start to emerge the more it has to explain, but it is entertainingly handled and Jones imbues the concept with a welcome strain of humour that helps distract attention from over-analysing its shortcomings.
Marking something of a return to form for Luc Besson, The Extraordinary Adventures of Adle Blanc-Sec is a spirited, if chaotic, fantasy adventure that pilfers the best bits from Indiana Jones and gives them a distinctly Gallic flavour. Though the source is a series of comic books by Jacques Tardi, it is to cinema's most famous archaeologist that Besson looks for inspiration for his titular heroine, a feisty early-20th-century novelist with a wry sense of humour and a habit of getting herself into scrapes that her smarts and derring-do only just allow her to escape. She's played with star-making confidence by Louise Bourgoin in a film that sees her embark on a mission to track down some mummified Egyptian remains in the hope that her mad scientist friend (Jacky Nercessian) can use them to help save her beloved sister from a freak-accident-induced fate. Unfortunately, it's a mission complicated by dastardly rivals, corrupt politicians, love-struck suitors and a young pterodactyl that appears to be terrorising the unsuspecting citizens – and dogs – of Paris. It all makes for an intriguing mix of fantasy and tongue-in-check humour, bolstered by a heroine who is a lot of fun to be around.