Snowbliteration Movie #1: The Taking of Pelham 123

This being the remake of a 1970s movie that has already been remade once before and was adapted from a novel. This one stars John Travolta as a remarkably foul-mouthed subway hijacker and Denzel Washington as the imperfect, but valiant, MTA supervisor who is trying to save the hostages. There are the requisite number of twists and turns. All in all, it's not as bad as I thought it would be, but it's not great. It's almost exactly like Deja Vu, another recent Tony Scott-Denzel Washington collaboration. Most of the movie is over-directed and the other actors don't really seem to click (I was immediately nevous when I noticed that there were two Transformers 2 actors in it, even if one was John Turturro), but Washington is good enough that he carries the day. I'm not sure how Scott and Washington have failed to recapture the magic of Crimson Tide, whether that was just a fluke or if they just haven't gotten back to that level yet. Either way, this one isn't a total waste of time. How's that for a glowing endorsement?