Hollywood must really hate Chicago. Maybe they’re jealous of the pizza or the fact that we had Oprah for all those years, but there was definitely some kind of an agenda when studio execs got together and decided to blow up the city not once, but twice. The results were The Source Code and Transformers III: Dark Side of the Moon. Michael Bay shut down Michigan Avenue last summer to bring his robot annihilation film to fruition. If he wanted major traffic arteries shut down, he should have been here in February; Lake Shore Drive was already kind of closed.

The Source Code blows up a train heading toward the city six or seven times. In a movie that cannot help but be compared to Groundhog Day, Jake Gyllenhaal must repeat the same eight minutes over and over again as he tries to figure out who is the terrorist who planted the train bomb and then headed to ChiTown with an even bigger one. I regret to tell you that not once in this movie does Jake take off his shirt, and really, what is the point of having him in the film if he’s going to remain fully clothed? Oh, Jake, like Heath said, I can’t quit you, but it isn’t your acting that makes me go to your films. The dirty bomb goes off in the one of the sequences, and we’re left with a fairly apocalyptic view of the city. Also, not a very reassuring feeling about ever getting on a Metra train again. Continue reading “The Source Code/Transformers 3: The Chicago Smackdown” →