“Unstoppable” is unremarkable. You might feel railroaded by the billing of icon Denzel Washington and his veteran go-to director Tony Scott on this runaway-train thriller. They might have you expecting something more than a ride. But even the durable Oscar winner can’t make this anything more than a flimsy genre flick with decent stunts and a cliche screenplay.
Rating » 2 out of 5 starsStars » Denzel Washington, Chris Pine, Rosario DawsonDirector » Tony ScottRated PG-13 for sequences of action and peril, and some languageRunning time » 98 minutes
Supposedly “inspired by” an actual incident of a speeding, unmanned freight locomotive, you can tell the story has been exaggerated for multiplex purposes by the one-note characters, overheated dialogue and conveniently convergent ending. It’s also a disaster movie without benefit of the splashy spectacle of an actual disaster. We know from the start that heroic Denzel would never allow anything too bad — and, thus, too destructively cool — to happen.
In their fifth outing together, a run that began with 1995’s “Crimson Tide,” Denzel and Scott get on the same track again as their collaboration last year: the hijacked-subway-train remake “The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3.” At least Scott can choreograph a proficient action set piece without relying too much on the artificial look of computer-generated enhancements. His live stunts ground even far-fetched popcorn fare in some sort of realism.
Similarly, powerhouse actor Denzel does his best to ground the sorry Mark Bomback script, but to little avail. In it, he plays stock figure Frank Barnes, the experienced old engineer who knows better than his impetuous young conductor Will Colson (“Star Trek’s” Chris Pine).
The opposites team up to rescue a major East Coast population center from a hurtling choo-choo with toxic cargo. To raise the stakes, they are each given corny, one-sentence movie motivations: Frank is in a fight with his daughter and is about to be laid off. Will is in a fight with his wife and has to prove he didn’t just get his new job from nepotism.
But so what if they die in a horrible wreck of twisted metal, noxious chemicals and high body count before they can save the day and reconcile with their respective loved ones? At least the two cuties have the most professionally whitened smiles ever seen on any blue-collar Everyman.
Meanwhile, Rosario Dawson overacts the role of their valiant supervisor, with Kevin Dunn doing the same as her difficult boss/antagonist. If they don’t deter you, well then, woo-woo, all aboard the for-profit star vehicle!
