Why hasn’t Speed inspired more knockoffs? The still-excellent action movie has a premise simple to the point of genius: forward-moving object gets out of control; heroes must stop it. Perhaps the abomination that was the Keanu-less Speed 2 (a.k.a. Speed with boats) put the kibosh on what obviously should have become a Hollywood cottage industry (think of the possibilities: Speed with airplanes, Speed with cars, Speed with motorcycles, Speed with hot-air balloons, Speed with spaceships, Speed with blimps, Speed with snow mobiles, Speed with jet skis, Speed with go-carts, Speed with canoes, etc., etc.). But at least now, sixteen years after Speed’s release, we finally get Unstoppable; or, Speedwith trains (somehow “based on a true storyâ€). A train loaded with hazardous chemicals — making it “a missile the size of the Chrysler building†— is zipping around America, vaporizing everything in its path. Denzel Washington, a grizzled engineer and conductor with family issues has the Keanu role. Chris Pine, as a spunky newbie fresh to the job with untapped reserves of heroism, has got the Sandra Bullock part. Together, the two are going to speed up their own train to “run this bitch down!†Probably, en route, they will hit a baby carriage that is full of cans. Just caaaaaans!
