The Taking of Pelham 123 (Thursday, June 25th, 2009)

I guess there are two ways of watching a movie like this. You can sit back and enjoy the ride (so to speak) and see if it is entertaining on purely visceral action levels or you can say, 'I live in New York and take the subway several times a day, just about every day - so let's see if they do it right'. I had high-ish hopes for this as the original is a fun, fresh movie that is not too dated (aside from a different and grittier looking subways system). I love the subway and maps and the original has a wonderful sense of feeling that they are in the real subways system moving in a specific direction. I always love that the original follows the stations of the 6 train almost exactly as the train moves downtown - and as there is a car above ground chasing the train, they drive down Park Avenue South as the train rides underneath - a very cool twist of a chase.

This film, however, gets almost every detail of the NY subways stem wrong - to a point that it's almost funny how bad it is. Not only do they get subways wrong, but they get surface streets and bridges wrong too - and very wrong. The 6 train in this film somehow is on a line that goes to Coney Island, which is only about 6 stops south of 34th St./Herald Square (also not a 6 stop). At one point, the office where Denzel works is mentioned as being in Midtown, and yet, it's clearly the Staten Island Ferry terminal (complete with SI Ferry signage in several shots) and then at one point he has to get from that location *uptown* to midtown - to Grand Central. Meanwhile there are cool aerial views of the city with google-mapy kind of signage pointing to where they are and where they're going.

In one chase scene, they have to get money from somewhere in Brooklyn to Grand Central - so they get on the Brooklyn Bridge, and get off of the 59th Street/Queensboro Bridge - and then are back downtown, as if they had actually taken the Brooklyn Bridge. Then they have to get uptown in a rush, so they take the traffic-filled surface streets, rather than the FDR to 42nd St... stupid. All they needed was a freaking real map of the city and this could have all be done much better. I guess locations in NYC are a challenge - but then they should have written it differently to better fit the locations they did use.

There are also a ton of silly plot devices - like a kid who uses a wireless laptop *in the subway* to i-chat/skype with his girlfriend... this is impossible in reality - and they even say as much- but they still do it. This leads to one of the dumber moments when the girl wants the kid to say he loves her - despite the bad guys with guns walking all over the place.

Travolta is beyond ridiculous and overdone. HE'S CRAZY and he'll tell and show you clearly. This is just silly in the end. I think my biggest problem is that I can't find the motivation or connection between the character (and the character's background) and his totally nuts-o behavior. He's mad at the city - but it wasn't the city that screwed him. It would be like Bernie Madoff getting out of jail and becoming a terrorist because he's angry with Mike Bloomberg... it doesn't add up here. Denzel is pretty good with what he has to work with - but, oh look- he's playing an angryish black dude again - that's very original for him (sarcasm).

There's so much potential here for a good movie. Terrorism is still a good story in a New York City action movie - and they do modernize the background stories nicely to update the original. The idea is wonderfully simple that you can hijack a train in the subway and with a few guns have all sorts of leverage because of the difficult location of the standoff.

Still, many of the details are stupid and the geographical mistakes they make are totally stupid and unforgivable. For instance, why did the train have to be speeding toward Coney Island (which might take 20 or 25 minutes from midtown at 60 mph)? Why can't they be speeding to Brooklyn Bridge/City Hall stop - the terminus of the 6 line - and in many ways a more dramatic thing if there's a big train accident UNDERNEATH City Hall! Especially if the Mayor is in the story! (I think that's what the original one was.) Yes, I could watch this for fun and just enjoy the action - and I did for a bit - but the problems are so big, it's simply distracting.

Stars: 1.5 of 4