Unstoppable Blu-ray Review

Tony Scott's latest keeps things moving.

Unstoppable is a pretty flawed beast. Wrapped in humorous cliches and weathered characters, the film is a play-by-play of nearly every modern action-thriller ever made. Think: Speed, Die Hard, The Towering Inferno, etc. Dialogue is silly. Characters are melodramatic. The pacing is overly energetic. And Denzel Washington throws in his token cockiness to keep things nice and cheesy.

But despite its many blemishes, Unstoppable is one enjoyable not-so-little B-movie (the production cost more than $100 million). The film more or less plays like one long monster action sequence in which a runaway train is barreling toward several large towns. The problem: the train is carrying a highly explosive material which could flatten any city if it were to crash and explode in a populated area. Cue our resident actions heroes, Denzel Washington and Chris Pine (Captain Kirk from Star Trek). Together they attempt to stop the monster train before it reaches its unwanted destination. Along the way, quite naturally, the two banter back and forth, learning about each other's flaws.

While the characters and most of the story are driven by ancient cliches, Tony Scott manages to keep things moving swiftly, with precise editing and a delightful, if slightly overbearing, pace. And the film is incredibly well cast, making our tired characters seem less annoying and more likeable. There's not one phoned-in performance here despite the hammy nature of the "based on a true story" narrative.

If you've come to Unstoppable expecting high art, or even a rigid action-drama, you've come to wrong place. While the film is surprisingly character-driven and some of the dramatic elements work rather well, Unstoppable works best when it's focused on the marvelous action set pieces and nail-biting thrills.

The film comes to Blu-ray with a modest special edition. Fans are treated to a commentary track from director Tony Scott, who details the production from a mostly technical standpoint. To be honest, it's a pretty dull listen -- nothing compared to one of Ridley Scott's commentaries. Better is the audio extra, "Tracking the Story" which again features Scott goes over the story – this time pieced together through prerecorded conversations. It's a little choppy, but interesting.

Filling out the disc is a series of featurettes (four total, presented in HD) that highlight the stunts, the cast, effects and production design. Alas, while there's nearly 80 minutes of material, the features are a little stale, never delving deep enough or approaching the material from a fresh angle. There's also plenty of EPK fodder within the featurettes, too.

Finishing off the set, there's a series of trailers and a Digital Copy of the film. The disc is also BD-Live enabled. Goodies there include a bonus featurette about the pyrotechnics of the film as well as Live Lookup and pocketBlu. Oddly, this release is missing a DVD Copy of the film.

As for the film presentation, Fox brings Unstoppable to Blu using the AVC codec. As per usual with Fox's new releases, this presentation is absolutely stellar. The encode boasts very few compression flaws, and the print is absolutely spotless. As with other Tony Scott productions, however, the presentation is a little nuanced, with slightly saturated fleshtones and a gritty, grainy feel. Thankfully, the Blu-ray does a wonderful job replicating Scott's quirky visual aesthetic.

I've come to expect aggressive, room-shaking surround experience from Tony Scott's pictures. Thankfully, this 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio mix does not disappoint. Surrounds are enveloping and organically mixed. And the film sports some spectacular bass cues that rumbled the hell out of my home theater every time there was a train onscreen. Quite surprisingly, dialogue is never drowned out or dragged down by distortions during any of the action set pieces, either. If you've come to Unstoppable expecting a roaring, reference experience, this mix should more than satisfy.

Denzel hams up his performance, the rest of the characters are pretty tired (though likeable) and the story more or less plays off old (but effective) action cues and ancient character beats, particularly films like Die Hard or The Towering Inferno. But the action set pieces are quite exhilarating and mostly make up for the film's silly shortcomings. Even better, the film gets a serious bass boost on Blu-ray making the overall experience even more enjoyable. If you're an action nut, Unstoppable is one train worth riding.