Unstoppable

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Myself

Spoiler alert: The train isn't unstoppable.

I don't mind Tony Scott doing his crazy shaky cam action stuff in action scenes. It's his "style" and it's why we love him, but does he really need to do it during simple dialogue scenes where two people having are just having a simple conversation? The character set ups at the start of the film look like a war scene filled with arbitrary crash zooms and whip pans etc. Perhaps he could have eased us in a little...

Once the train leaves the station it's pretty much non-stop apart from some unwanted divorce/family drama side story stuff no-one cares about. From the set up in the trailer you have to wonder how they are going to stretch this out into a 2 hour movie. Just keep throwing stuff in front of the train and then watch it explode? Well yes that does happen quite a bit but there was enough other sequences in there that kept it interesting and engaging. More than I expected, which is always a pleasant surprise.

The action beats are impressive but I had some trouble with the geography of the scenes, especially at the start. They give you some captions telling you which station you are at but when you have no idea where in the state that is and how far apart they are, things that a crucial to build the tension in a film like this, it gets confusing (Unless perhaps you are american and know all these places). They started showing maps halfway through and from then on it was fine.

So much telephoto photography. I guess this helps cheat the speed and distance significantly, but again, doesn't help much putting together the layout of the action in your head.

One thing that stood out was the sound design. This is a LOUD film. The trains roar like lions and really shook the theatre. The score does its job fine but there was one small moment where it came to the forefront and, I dunno, whatever that music was It didn't fit al all.

Eh, I'm being nit-picky, this was enjoyable and really managed to build the tension. It did everything it promised in the trailer, can't argue with that.