Unstoppable (2010)

Unstoppable: Opening your eyes to how much human errors can really f*** up your day! Think about it. One guy decides to jump out of the train’s cab and then can’t get back in, making several cities in danger. Ooopsie! I’m sorry? Thankfully, Frank Barnes (Denzel Washington) and newbie Will Colson (Chris Pine) are on the hunt for the runaway train.

The film kept the pace up throughout. There’s wasn’t a whole lot of outright action such as hunting down a bad guy, explosions, etc., but it kept you interested and nervous about what was going to happen. The characters suck you in and make you like them so that you continue to care if they live or die. And the runaway train is a character itself. It’s the equivalent of a young teenage train looking to see the world, which means keeping up a pace around 70 mph and managing to create a lot of havoc in every city it goes through. Trains gone wild! WOO-WOO!

Time Until the Train Tries to Escape: ~ 11 minutes

Baddies: The TRAIN!!!!

Best Line: “This is Will Colson, the conductor speaking; just to let you know we’re gonna run this bitch down.”

Best Kill: The only kill goes along with the only explosion. See below. There was a poor old guy conducting that two-car train. I don’t think he could make it out of an explosion that big, although maybe if he jumped at just the right moment and said a snappy one-liner he would’ve been fine.

Best Explosion: The higher-up geniuses of the train company decide to stop the unmanned train by having a two car train get in front of it and slowly put on the brakes. That sounds great in theory, but this is an unstoppable train so they should have known something bad would happen. The small train just gets bullied off the track by the train gone wild and ends up exploding into a crazy-huge fireball. Even though I believe it was the only explosion, it was a good one.

Action Rating: 2½ Unstoppable Hot Dog Carts, out of 5.

Illustration by Nick Langley, Rocket Llama World Headquarters.

This is the Action Flick Chick, and you’ve just been kicked in the ass!