Starring Denzel Washington, Chris Pine, Rosario Dawson
Score: 8 out of 10
The star of Unstoppable is a runaway train that stretches a half-mile and is filled with an explosive, unstable compound that, if detonated, can take out several square miles.
Enter Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) and Denzel Washington to save the day.
Washington plays a 28-year veteran to the railway system and Pine is his cocky, young trainee. The two don't get along at first, but have to put aside their differences to stop the fugitive train from destroying the town in which Pine's character's entire family lives.
Needless to say, Unstoppable is a bit formulaic. Okay. More than a bit.
With action films, I'm okay with "formula" but it has to be good enough to pull me into the story, make me suspend what I know to be true. The logical part of my brain, which has been conditioned from years of watching movies directed by Tony Scott and Jerry Bruckheimer, knows that no one important (to the plot of the film) will die and tragedy will be averted. A good suspense action film will flip on the emotional side of my brain--the part that makes me cringe at house spiders and believes there's an axe murderer in the woods outside my house--causing me to tense up and actually fear for the worse. It's like being on a roller coaster--you know the chances are slim the car will skip the track and you'll go plummeting to your death, but the it's the slightest hint of disaster that makes the ride all the more fun.
That's the best compliment I can pay to a movie like Unstoppable--I knew everything would be fine, but the film's intensity allowed me to, as they say, suspend my disbelief about a runaway train hurling itself like a missile at a sleepy Pennsylvania town.
Unstoppable is now available on DVD and as an iTunes rental.
