The biggest problem I have with the new Denzel Washington action movie Unstoppable – starring a runaway train – is that for all its faults and how much I wanted to hate it, and what a cliche it all was, I actually was pretty entertained…
Unstoppable.
Believe it or not, you have already seen this movie.
If you have seen any of the other Tony Scott/Denzel Washington collaborations (like Man on Fire or Déjà vu) then you will recognize Washington’s older, jaded, know-it-all character.
If you have seen Speed 2 then you recognize the out of control vehicle, if you have seen Armageddon then you will have seen heroic men out to save the world from a preposterous disaster scenario.
And Hollywood is full of movies with a guy trying to get the girl….or trying to get the girl back.
This movie is pure Hollywood cliché and I don’t think I need to tell you too much more than that. It sounds dumb, and it is dumb. The only thing that could make it any more cliché would be adding in a strained relationship between the rookie conductor and his young wife.
Oh wait…..they do that too.
There is nothing in this movie that you won’t have seen before. I wished it would be otherwise but as soon as the movie starts you know exactly how it ends. There is no suspense, there is no character development and there are no surprises.
If you have seen the trailer then you know the plot. It’s about a train that gets away from the driver and goes solo the wrong way down the tracks. Denzel Washington is the jaded old driver in a separate train (complete with cliché rookie conductor) who tries to run down the train to save a town from total destruction. The thing is, after two minutes of the movie starting I knew exactly how it was going to end and could have had a reasonably accurate guess at all the stages in between. I am by no means a genius. You will be able to as well.
However, by the end of it I somehow didn’t mind. You didn’t need to be introduced to the characters because you know them from years of watching similar movies. There was no more need for character development than there is when you hang out with your best friends because you already know them. The lack of suspense, rather than being annoying was somehow refreshing by the end of it. It was almost a feel good movie because of the predictability.
The biggest problem I have with this movie is that for all its faults and how much I wanted to hate it, I actually was pretty entertained.
It won’t be nominated for any Oscars. The acting is not outstanding, the story was tenuous, the cinematography was average, the special effects were poor but somehow it still delivered on the promise of being entertaining….and not in a Snakes on a Plane it’s so bad it’s good kind of way. It was just pure entertaining and at the end of the day, that is what movies are all about.
Below: Cliché photo of two cliché characters in a cliché scene from a cliché movie.
Below: This is one of the main characters so, while this photo shows him in a precarious position, he does not die.
By Jeremy White, 28 November 2010.
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