This movie is just unbelievable in it's stupidity.

I give it D.

It worked for me. I knew the movie had won me over when I realized that the traintrack switches were intense. If I have a small complaint though, it's a complaint I've had with most of Tony Scott's movies since 1987 - was there really a need to have the camera constantly swinging around during the conference table and control center scenes? I know there's a need to create tension in the scenes outside of what's going happening on the trains, but camera movement isn't the way to do that.

Aside from that I thought it was very good and better than what I was expecting.

***½ (A-)

I agree with both Mesjarch and Jmart here. Although the movie was incredibly ridiculous, it was very engaging with the runaway train scenes. I also felt that there wasn't enough backstory to really feel anything for the two main characters. It was just a line of dialogue and that was it. For the most part though, it did what it set out to do and succeeded very well in that aspect.

The performances weren't anything to write home about but they were serviceable.

6/10

This was pretty awesome. Very self aware that it's a Denziel 'it's an unstoppable train!' movie. Doesn't try to do anything more with the characters than have them be awesome set pieces. And I agree with jmart - what could be mundane how do we switch and stop this train talk (after all, there's no Speed like terrorist here) ends up being pretty damn exciting

Best Denzel movie in a while.

Well I enjoyed it... Although I'd still sit through Skyline again if it had Chris Pine.

pretty damn exciting

B+

For all its glaring flaws I must admit I was rather engaged throughout the entire event. In retrospect the entire thing feels very brief, none of the plot points really sticking out or particularly memorable. I doubt if I even remember anything other than the two names that were regurgitated about 97 (and a half, when the reporter was yelling over the train that he was nowhere near.) During the ride, I sort of, kinda, maybe almost liked it though.
5/10or2.5or**1/2orC

Unstoppable is a satisfying hour and a half thrill ride that uses its very short plot of a runaway train loaded with explosives going unmanned to its advantage and makes every minute exhilarating. Denzel Washington and Chris Pine work well together here and Rosario Dawson is also noteworthy. It doesn't break an amazing barrier but for it what it is, it is solid. One of director Tony Scott's best. ***

Aaaahhh... the rare movie's movie!

Unstoppable is a true story absolutely tailor made to be adapted into Tony Scott's trademark hyperkinetic style. This is what movies were made for. It's the logical extension of the "undoubtedly astonished people in the audience" of the Lumiere Brothers' 1895 pioneering film Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat - - film number 12 (!) on the Internet Movie Database: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0000012/.

Superbly staged, acted, edited, and directed, Unstoppable is an emotionally propulsive experience of a film - - I was moved by this movie. This is what the term "edge of your seat" was coined for. Unstoppable rocks.

Amazingly, this fine film was released the exact same day as this Fall's other movie miracle Skyline - - November 12th, 2010 shall henceforth be celebrated as a singularly magical day in the history of cinema. And since Unstoppable was even a hair better than Skyline, I'm gonna have to rate it one better:


88889 out of 5.



{I hereby bestow Unstoppable instant installation on my 2010 Top Ten list!!!!}

It is what it is.

An action movie with no murders? That only has one scene of bullets being fired, and makes fun of the stupidity of the shooters?

Nope, Tony Scott shows tripe like The Expendables that you don't need monotonous killing to thrill an audience. There's a pleasantly gritty, industrial feel to the look of the film. Speed and size are excellently captured in numerous fun ways. Its a simple, problem-solving guy movie.

Just as the sheer quantity of fake news footage gets a bit tiring, Scott has the self-awareness to shove a news helicopter into the middle of an action scene. It hovers around like a vulture, and is one of a number of instances displaying the pervasiveness of mass media. In that way, Unstoppable would probably make a great double-feature with The Social Network!

B+


I think Tony Scott is a fine director, but he does the same shtick way too often. Flashy cinematography, fast editing, slow-mo...in some movies it fits well. That's why I loved his ultra-high-style Domino. But in others it is just distracting (The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 ).

Thankfully he mostly cut down on that in Unstoppable save for a few moments in the beginning and during a few action scenes. Unstoppable is a very old-fashioned mixture of a disaster flick and an action movie. And unlike all Washington/Scott collaborations I have seen before (Pelham, Man on Fire, Déjà Vu) I actually left the theatre positively surprised after this film. Like MovieDude and some reviewers have said, it is actually quite amazing that Scott manages to create an exciting action film from start to finish without resorting to much mayhem, explosions or anything else one would understand under "traditional action". It is just a story of a fast runaway train and two unequal men trying to stop it. It creates tension out of most simple situation and never goes too much over the top.

Another reason the film works so very well is the terrific interaction between Denzel Washington and Chris Pine. There some humor in it, but their pairing never plays it for laughs. They just have great chemistry and that makes their bonding in the course of the film believable. Rosario Dawson gets less to do, but she makes most of what she has been given. No one else is really noteworthy.

I think it is just great that a film as mostly low-key as this still works in such an exciting manner. It is a B-movie with A-list actors and and with A-production values and it does the best one can do with its premise. Of course the realism suffers at certain points and of course it needs some artificially created moments of peril (like the train full of kids on a field trip). It needs some obstacles thrown into the way of our heroes. But on the whole it all comes together very well and delivers one of the most fun actioners of 2010. It's like Speed without a villain.

B

It was a good movie and I had a blast in some parts of it.

7/10 -> B-

Despite the idiotic setup (whether it was based on real events or not, you don't get off a train to switch the rails yourself if you already didn't do those air brakes or whatever because you were lazy - it's like asking for something bad to happen), it's actually pretty thrilling once the action starts. Washington and Pike have a good buddy-buddy chemistry. But the last 20-30 minutes got slightly boring. The whole train sequences and action started to look the same and the movie never managed to fully portrait the risk that the derailment of the train at the wrong place would have or that the two leads were in any danger. It's just too predictably hero-ey.

And like Dr. Lecter said, this one seems like a stripped version of what Speed 3 was supposed to look like.

Reality is so fake.

And overrated.

We're all just characters in a wet dream BKB had in 1993.

I should hope so.

LOL

I'll forget it in a month, but a decent, exciting way to spend 90 minutes. No one gets to do much acting beyond yelling train jargon at each other and casting sinister glances left and right, but Washington and Pine both have natural charisma and screen presence. Tony Scott knows how to shoot and cut action and builds a reasonable amount of suspense, though he and the writer dial up the sentimentality way too much in the third act with all the shots of crowds watching the action on the TV and shouting, "Go! You can do it! YES! CLOSE CALL! WOW! WHOA! YIKES!" I half expected a "U.S.A.! U.S.A.!" chant.

B-

B-

I pretty much agree with everything Gun said.

It's certainly better than Speed 2 but it doesn't reach the heights of the original. Sandra Bullock is strongly missed, and I have to say the fat guy is not nearly as menacing as Dennis Hopper or even Dafoe.

I can't believe they only tried one helicopter attempt though. Sure the first attempt didn't work, but that was because ANOTHER TRAIN hit it. I'd have said give it another go, especially since it was all straight track after that.

Though my biggest complaint is the news helicopters. Maybe its because I work in one, but they never could stay in the air that long, and most of the camera angles they got were ridiculously impossible.