Director Tony Scott can always be counted on for visually compelling movies with razor-thin characters. His most recent offering, [[[Unstoppable]]], is now out on DVD from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment and makes for a mindless viewing.

The film is based on a true story but was amplified beyond recognition as two train men risk their lives to stop a runaway train under full power before it could destroy lives and property with its toxic cargo. Newcomer Will Colson (Chris Pine, showing more range than his Jim Kirk) is paired with the grizzled veteran Frank Barnes (Denzel Washington, playing the same everyman he played in the remake of [[[Pelham 1-2-3]]]) as they take 1206 out to collect freight cars. At much the same time, careless workmen at a rail yard allow a freight train to get away from them and without the air brakes attached, it becomes a “half-mile long missile” heading into rural Pennsylvania.

Obviously, it’s an action movie so the tension is nicely ratcheted up with fast cuts between the two trainmen, the runaway, the operations center, and the general public. Scott handles this well so you’re deep into the movie before you realize the characters aren’t particularly deep. Colson has family ties to the business, earning him contempt from the veterans, plus is estranged from his wife and son, which preoccupies him. Barnes has seen it all before and knows more than the executive and shows off his know-how time and again, devoting everything to the task at hand despite knowing he is being forced into early retirement in a mere three weeks. Watching them come together to bond and save the day should have been a more rewarding experience.

Rosario Dawson as the train controller is the best supporting player in the film and does a good job with a thankless part.  Everyone else arrived from central casting so the higher-ups and CEO are all clichés, offering nothing diverting to the overall story.

The cookie-cutter feel to the story surfaces now and then but Scott and his editor Chris Lebenzon, keep things briskly moving.

The Blu-ray transferred nicely so looks crisp with good sound. The movie is accompanied by a dry audio commentary from Scott or you could listen to “Tracking the Story” a series of tape recorded conversations between Scott and screenwriter Mark Bomback. The latter should have been more revealing and interesting.

Then there’s “The Fastest Track: Unleashing ‘Unstoppable'”, a 29:41 featurette on the film’s complicated production. Unfortunately, by now there should have been some detail on the true events that launched this jet-fueled version but no one seems interested in reality. “Derailed: Anatomy of a Scene” (10:01) shows how the train derailment moment was prepped and filmed, proving that some things look better in real life than a CGI-generated version. Similarly, “Hanging off the Train: Stunt Work” (14:25) shows how hazardous it can be for the true action heroes. Less interesting is “On the Rails with the Director and Cast” (13:25) as Scott, Washington, Pine, and Dawson talk briefly about making the film.

Entertaining with easy-going performances, this is worth a look.

I wanted to show off some of the other cool Minimates that Diamond Comics Distributors had at their booth, but as is often the case with trade shows, photos were not permitted yet.

Something of note at JAKKS Pacific was a considerable line of goodies from the Dreamworks movie, “Real Steel.”

A 5″ line of figures will have interchangeable limbs and light up heads & bodies for customization. A larger 7.5″ line will have signature moves from the movie, but there’s gonna be something even more dear to the hearts of a lot of geeks – a variation (and a necessary one at that) on the childhood favorite, “Rock’em Sock’em Robots” (note to younger readers: ask your folks about this. It’s really cool. trust me).

DC Direct had some very well made busts & figures from the upcoming “Green Lantern” movie:

But the thing I was most looking forward to was goodies to “Batman: Arkham City,” the video game sequel to the 2009 hit game “Batman: Arkham Asylum.” So far, only one figure had been shown off, and it’s a doozy.

Harley Quinn keeps getting nuttier and nuttier. And that’s a good thing.

Mezco Toyz showed off a 6″ Scott Pilgrim figure from the movie and fan fave graphic novel series. Hopefully more figures will be coming.

I love that “Little Big Planet” brings a lot of user-creativity into video games, and to celebrate that, Mezco showed off their second wave of “Little Big Planet” action figures.

McFarlane Toys never fails to impress, and they had a couple of great highlights including this guy

Now Bungie may have left Microsoft, but that does not mean that “Halo” is dead. Far from it. More video games are being planned, and one can only hope that a movie might actually happen.

McFarlane Toys also had shown off figures from “The Walking Dead.” Take a look at these two guys.

Now note that “Officer Rick Grimes” doesn’t look like Andrew Lincoln, the actor who portrays him in the AMC TV series. There’s a reason for that. McFarlane Toys’ goodies for “The Walking Dead” is both for the Robert Kirkman graphic novel series as well as for the AMC TV series. This can create some issues as one of the figures in the first wave “may” actually appear in the 2nd season of the TV series (“Daryl Dixon,” everybody’s favorite crossbow-wielding hillbilly, will be in the second wave of action figures).

That’s it for now. In the third part, I’ll talk about some of the stuff I was unable to see as well as what I consider to be the coolest toy at Toy Fair 2011.

Since we had access to COMMUNITY stars Allison Brie and Danny Pudi, we decided to get the scoop on just what goes on behind the camersa as well as what is coming up on the show. How does the cast pass the time on the set? What about Jeff & Annie? And those pop culture references, dies everyone get them? Plus The Suicide Girls meet reality TV – ’bout time!

DC Comics’ All-Star imprint was intended to bring their top talents together with their top characters to produce stories that followed the core concepts of the iconic heroes and villains so the comics would appeal to mainstream audiences. The two titles that made it out, featuring Batman and Superman utterly failed on that account and their irregular publishing schedules meant the audience the books were aimed at couldn’t get into the needed buying rhythm.

[[[All-Star Superman]]] by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely thrilled the core audience with their retro-futuristic take on the characters and settings, winning acclaim and awards. Now, the 12 issue storyline has been neatly compressed into a 76 minute animated feature, out this week from Warner Home Video. Obviously, every bit and piece, every favorite moment, couldn’t possibly be included in Dwayne McDuffie’s script, but he does a fine job boiling the story down to its essence. In short, Lex Luthor has manipulated events from afar, forcing Superman to save a spacecraft that left him over-saturated with solar energy which has increased his amazing array of powers but is also slowly killing him.

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