"Unstoppable" - in theaters

Tony Scott is having a love affair with Denzel Washington.

Or so it would seem.

"Unstoppable" marks their 5th collaboration, and I gotta say, it's kind of awesome.

I went into the theater expecting the worst. I thought for sure the story would revolve around some terrorist organization that hijacks a train loaded with chemicals in order to annihilate some mid-sized city, and that it was up to some ballsy train conductor to stop it. That was not the case. In fact, the train gets going because some moron made a mistake at the train yard. It was merely a happy coincidence that the train was full of hazardous waste.

Meanwhile, Frank (Denzel), a weary engineer is paired that morning with up and comer, who is also a little down on his luck, Will (Chris Pine) for training that day. They were just picking up their load when they got the notice that there was a runaway train. They narrowly avoid getting bombarded by it, and then make the decision to chase it down and try to stop it.

It's actually all very straight forward.

My favorite character was Connie, played by Rosario Dawson, who monitored the trains on that stretch of track. She's the person that Frank and Will communicate with throughout the film, getting updates on the runaway and relaying stuff to corporate. Connie is a strong woman, who is great at her job and not afraid to yell at the Director of Operations. Needless to say, every time she was onscreen, she seemed to steal the show.

Come to think of it, every actor brought something to their character, whether it was Frank's steadfastness or Will's hotheadedness, it all comes together for a highly entertaining action film. There were times when I was on the edge of my seat, or clutching my friend next to me. And it totally took me by surprise.

So on the CWeave scale, I rate this an 8. Again, it was a fun action film, and with the current award hopefuls being released, a welcome relief to the high drama that those films contain. And definitely worth a trip to the theater for. I don't think it's going to look the same when it's on the small screen...