I could have reviewed a much better movie that was coming out in the next few weeks. I could have chose James Franco’s latest film 127 Hours; a tear-jerking story of a mountain climber trapped under a boulder and the sacrifices he has to make to try to get free. I could have looked into Due Date, a movie that looks like it will be a decent buddy comedy that University types would eat up á la The Hangover. But sometime you have to review a movie for the greater good. The world has to know about this upcoming movie. Future generations will point their accusatory fingers towards this movie, shaking their heads in despair. Whereas the eighties were mocked for their shitty hair, the nineties for their shitty clothes, the young 10’s might be laughed at for their shitty movies if terrible ideas like this one are allowed to actually see the light of day. Because folks, if you ever wanted to see the most literal example of scraping the bottom of the barrel, I do believe Unstoppable is the movie for you.
Never heard of Unstoppable? Well, you’re a lucky one. The movie is about a train. No, wait, it’s about Denzel Washington, and Chris Pine driving a train. Denzel Washington is the grizzled vet, the wise know-it-all of the train-yard, taking care of Chris Pine, the fresh-faced rookie with something to prove in the train yard. With Chris Pine’s first day conducting a real train, calamity strikes. That train I was talking about earlier? Guess what; no one is driving it! Whoops! What’s that? It gets worse? It’s hauling a bunch of deadly chemicals, and is going into a residential area? Oh that’s terrible, but at least it’s not going to crash head-on with a train hauling a bunch of school kids on a field trip. Wait, you say it’s on a collision course with a train hauling a bunch of school kids on a field trip? That’s so ridiculously moronic that it isn’t even realistic. It’s based on true events? Ugh…
I don’t know much about trains, but judging by everyone in this trailer, neither do they. This trailer just makes my head hurt. How does someone lose a train? If a train can start on its own, it means that there is some sort of remote control that should have some sort of basic controls. Sure it might not be able to stop the train, but I’m guessing there might be a way to jettison the cargo. The responsible engineer in me would love to comment on the lack of back-up safety systems and how minute details such as the functionality of the air brakes should have been verified, but I don’t want to waste my precious typing fingers. Complaining about the stupidity of this movie is useless because that implies that the movie has at least the merit to be talked about.
A four-word description of the movie: Speed on a train. A three-word review for the trailer: pile of crap. The fact that this got recognizable actors to play in this and that it was not shelved as some straight-to-video garbage release boggles my mind. Speed, when it came out, was a pretty good movie; it got good reviews and held its own enough to have countless parodies and asinine sequels succeed it. The whole speed idea went from interesting to funny, to tired, to idiotic more than 10 years ago, and yet some exec thought this movie was a good idea to throw money at.
Don’t even watch this movie for ironic purposes. Don’t go in to it thinking it will be so bad that it’s good. Don’t watch this movie at all, and this is coming from a guy who paid money to watch Beverly Hills Chihuahua on opening night. My standards aren’t terribly high, but it has its limits. Unstoppable is a garbage idea, with a god-awful trailer, and will no doubt be a horrid movie. I couldn’t even bring myself to make a lame engineering pun because quite simply, the movie ain’t worth it.
Leave a Reply