{"id":2335,"date":"2011-02-14T11:46:56","date_gmt":"2011-02-14T16:46:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=2335"},"modified":"2011-02-14T11:57:14","modified_gmt":"2011-02-14T16:57:14","slug":"dvd-unstoppable-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=2335","title":{"rendered":"DVD: Unstoppable (2010)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Return to: <\/strong>Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> \/ <\/em>T to U<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Film: Good\/ DVD Transfer: Very Good\/ DVD Extras: Good<\/p>\n

Label:\u00a020th Century-Fox\u00a0\/ Region: 1 (NTSC) \/\u00a0Released: February 15, 2011<\/p>\n

Genre: Action \/ Disaster<\/p>\n

Synopsis: An unmanned train with toxic goo is headed for a populated area. Can it be stopped in time?<\/p>\n

Special Features: Audio track 1: Commentary by director Tony Scott \/ Audio track 2: Tracking the Story: Unstoppable Script Development \/ Making-of featurette: (29:41)<\/p>\n

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Review:<\/p>\n

Essentially a disaster film distilled to a tale of an unmanned locomotive and its toxic cargo headed straight for a populated area, Unstoppable<\/strong> isn\u2019t an original concept \u2013 it\u2019s reportedly based on a \u2018true event\u2019 \u2013 but unlike Atomic Train<\/strong>, the bloated 1999 NBC TV mini-series about a train with nuclear waste headed towards a major city, Mark Bomback\u2019s script keeps things lean and simple: a careless decision results in a runaway train, and every effort to halt \u2018the beast\u2019 on wheels fails until a pair of conductors take fate into their hands and risk their lives to save the town.<\/p>\n

Bomback\u2019s script lay in development hell for two years until director Tony Scott picked it up, and after detailed research and further rewrites, it was transformed into a simple disaster film without any<\/em> fat.<\/p>\n

The major characters are aging engine driver Frank (Denzel Washington), green-eared conductor Will (Chris Pine), and rail manager Connie (Rosario Dawson), and while neither is particularly deep, they\u2019re written and played with the same blue-collar realism found in that other monster train film, Runaway Train<\/strong> (1985), as well as the multiple characters involved in finding and stopping a runaway subway train in The Taking of Pelham One Two Three<\/strong> (1974), which director Scott remade in 2009.<\/p>\n

The villain in Unstoppable <\/strong>isn\u2019t the train but human incompetence, beginning with the foolish driver who figured he could beat time and hop off and on the train to kick a rail switch in place, and a blundering rail supervisor whose two major emergency efforts \u2013 air dropping a man onto the train while a new engine attempts a front-end slow-down, and a later derailment \u2013 fail miserably.<\/p>\n

The big surprise for action and disaster fans (if not train aficionados) is that every train is real<\/em>. Scott also went for old school stunts, using a pack of trains with multiple tracking cameras to capture the chase, the failed efforts to rein in the machine, and the finale, with as many actors in motion at all times.<\/p>\n

On the one hand, Scott is the perfect director, bringing his indulgent visual kinetics to the drama by using multiple angles and constantly intercutting between staid and moving scenes, but he\u2019s also the worst<\/em> choice: as a producer, he would\u2019ve mandated (and perhaps second unit shot) the action scenes and left the major dialogue scenes to a less visually psychotic director, but his decision to treat Connie\u2019s dialogue scenes (she\u2019s often seated, much like Walter Matthau in Pelham<\/strong>) with fast-crabbing cameras is ridiculous and nausea-inducing.<\/p>\n

The constant movement within short-lived shots – be it the dated jerky NYPD Blue<\/strong> movements, jump cuts, or punching into a shot from medium to close-up from blurry to in-focus – are pure style over any dramatic substance, and as much as Scott believes he\u2019s transferring his \u2018painterly\u2019 approach to filmmaking \u2013 shots applied as colored brush strokes – it\u2019s overkill, and almost ruins the film, save for the realism of the trains.<\/p>\n

Even action scenes suffer from the visual excess, as is the case of the attempted helicopter drop onto the runaway train, while two news copters zip by in close proximity. It\u2019s all beautifully choreographed, but the grace of movements \u2013 machines coming into frame, passing vans and trucks, etc. \u2013 are far too brief. One only need examine a similar sequence in The Cassandra Crossing<\/strong> (1976) where an attempt to get a man onto a runaway train with plague victims is covered in a variety of shots held for different durations, conveying both action and the visual elegance of the trains moving in and out of tunnels.<\/p>\n

A stranded horse cart on the train tracks is another simple scene that\u2019s ruined by vomit-churning, fast-cut shakycam footage of frightened horses being pulled off the tracks. Fast cuts and multiple angles for the moment \u2018the beast\u2019 smashes through the cart and truck are fine, but the agitated horses segment is just plain messy.<\/p>\n

The stunt work, however, is first-rate, and in spite of the fast edits, one still enjoys the close calls Washington and Pine experience as they attempt to stop \u2018the beast\u2019 before it reaches a sharp curve and tumbles into a dangerous area. It\u2019s arguable whether the stunts scenes where Sean Connery walks atop a train and ducks low bridges in The Great Train Robbery<\/strong> (1979) are superior, but Scott managed to prove real trains, minimal CGI, and stuntmen doing risky work is far more exciting than the heavy CGI used by lazy directors (not to mention the tightly budgeted productions like Atomic Train<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

Harry Gregson-Williams\u2019 score is perfect for the film \u2013 punchy, percussive, and evocative of clacking wheels and chugging motifs \u2013 and the sound mix provides aggressive effects within the 5.1 spectrum.<\/p>\n

Fox\u2019 DVD includes a generic making-of featurette that\u2019s actually quite informative, with plenty of footage showing the trains, and practical and camera rigs used for this elaborate production. Scott also provides a director\u2019s commentary, but it\u2019s banal because he focuses on the mundane character minutia that are nowhere as detailed as he thinks.<\/p>\n

The track would\u2019ve been far better by having writer Bomback provide details of the writing & research periods, not to mention the \u2018true life\u2019 incident that inspired him. There\u2019s no reason why additional recollections couldn\u2019t have been added to create a fluid and lively discussion of this snappy & engaging actioner.<\/p>\n

The alternative for the DVD\u2019s producers was to edit the hours of story conferences between Scott and Bomback into an alternate<\/em> audio track<\/em>, which is conceptually interesting, but it\u2019s ultimately just rough ideas about scenes and characters, details and dialogue; if it was Alfred Hitchcock and Ernest Lehman discussing North by Northwest<\/strong> (1959), it would work, but not a flurry of \u2018what ifs\u2019 for the 80-odd mins. of what\u2019s a marginally successful B-movie with crackhead visuals.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 2011 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

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Related links:<\/em><\/p>\n

CD: \u00a0Unstoppable <\/a><\/strong>(2010)<\/p>\n

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Related external links (MAIN SITE):<\/em><\/p>\n

DVD \/ Film: \u00a0North by Northwest<\/a><\/strong> (1959) —\u00a0The Taking of Pelham One Two Three<\/a><\/strong> <\/strong>(1974)<\/p>\n

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External References<\/em>:<\/p>\n

IMDB <\/a>— Official Website<\/a> — Soundtrack Album<\/a> — Composer Filmography<\/a><\/p>\n

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Buy from:<\/em><\/p>\n

Amazon.com<\/strong> \u2013 Unstoppable<\/a><\/p>\n

Amazon.ca<\/strong> – Unstoppable<\/a><\/p>\n

Amazon.co.uk <\/strong> – Unstoppable [DVD] [2010]<\/a><\/p>\n

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Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> <\/em><\/em><\/em>\/\u00a0T to U<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Return to: Home \/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews \/ T to U . Film: Good\/ DVD Transfer: Very Good\/ DVD Extras: Good Label:\u00a020th Century-Fox\u00a0\/ Region: 1 (NTSC) \/\u00a0Released: February 15, 2011 Genre: Action \/ Disaster Synopsis: An unmanned train with toxic goo is headed for a populated area. Can it be stopped in time? Special Features: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[306,305],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-BF","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2335"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2335"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2340,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2335\/revisions\/2340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}