By Debbie Schlussel

**** UPDATE, 11/13/10, 10:10 p.m.: SCROLL DOWN FOR “Skyline” REVIEW, Just Added

“Skyline” was not screened for critics, generally a sign it isn’t good.  But you never know, and I’ll try to say it over the weekend and report back.  Here’s what I saw:

*  “Unstoppable“:  While this isn’t the greatest, most exciting action thriller ever made, it’s adequate, entertaining, and enjoyable.  It’s also predictable and decidedly anti-corporate America, with a CEO who’d rather risk people dying than ruin a multi-million dollar train (which isn’t realistic because any CEO knows he’d be in for millions more in lawsuits and bad publicity).

Idiots working at the yard of a private rail company let a train go without putting on emergency brakes.  The unmanned train won’t stop and is carrying poisonous cargo, which could kill many people if the train crashes and the fumes are unleashed.  Rosario Dawson plays a supervisor trying to stop the train.  The workmanlike Denzel Washington and ruggedly hot Chris Pine play working-class employees on board another train, trying to stop the runaway train from jumping the rails and killing people.

Washington is a father who is on the outs with one of his Hooters waitress daughters because he forgot her birthday (gee, how much did Hooters pay for this very friendly product placement?).  He’s an experienced train engineer.  Pine isn’t.  He got his job through family connections in the union, and it’s his first day on the job.  He is distracted by issues in family court dealing with a restraining order against him with regard to his estranged wife and child.  All of those things are side issues to the main story here, the runaway train and their efforts to stop it.

As you may know, this isn’t Washington’s first outing in a runaway train movie, as he starred in the more exciting “Taking of Pelham 1-2-3” (read my review) (a remake of the exciting original).  While some of the story in this movie (allegedly based on a true story) strains credulity (Pine jumping from a speeding truck to an even faster, speeding train with an injured leg), it’s entertaining enough to fill two hours without much offense . . . other than making corporate execs look like morons and insensitive creeps in typical Hollywood, anti-business fashion.  And, yes, this anti-business movie comes from Rupert Murdoch’s and Saudi Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal’s 20th Century FOX.  In case you didn’t know, nearly every news report–and there are many in this–has the logo of local FOX stations emblazoned in giant letters across the screen.

TWO REAGANS

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* “Morning Glory“: More like Morning Sickness. This absolutely awful, dopey, saccharin chick flick romantic comedy is barely comedic and the characters made me want to slit their wrists even more than I wanted to slit mine sitting through this.

Rachel McAdams’ morning TV show producer character is so highly annoying and neurotic, you simply can’t take it. That makes it even more surprising that the most dull actor in Hollywood, Patrick Wilson, wants to “date” (euphemism) her. Real-life Vietnam draft-dodger Harrison Ford takes out his stupid mid-life crisis man-earring to play a respected journalist and former network news anchor who begrudgingly hosts a very low-rated network morning show with Diane Keaton. The show is in danger of cancellation, and McAdams will lose her job if that happens.

While there are a few–very, very few–funny lines, it’s mostly stupid, slow, and boring. Not to mention, uber-predictable. Ford realizes that stupid morning show fluff is real journalism far better than his own hard-hitting investigative reports and the ratings zip up. Day saved. Coulda told you that before I suffered through this high-fructose corn syrup. The only worthwhile funny part–very mildly funny–was when a photo of Jimmy Carter’s face was on the news, with the accidental notation under it that he’s a sex offender. Not worth 1.5 hours and ten bucks of your life for that.

Skipworthy to the Nth.

TWO-AND-A-HALF MARXES

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* “Tamara Drewe“: This entertaining, laid back movie is predictable and definitely not for kids. But it’s still light and amusing. It follows several characters in the British countryside, whose lives intertwine in adult ways.

There is a successful writer who has a country home and hosts aspiring writers for retreats on which to write their own books. He, however, is a cad and is cheating on his doting wife (who helps make his books a success, manages his career, and hosts the retreats) with a younger woman.

Meanwhile, the farm next door is being readied for sale by the young journalist, Tamara Drewe (Gemma Arterton), who grew up there. She has gotten plastic surgery to remove her beak of a nose and is now very comely. She has several affairs with characters in the movie, but the farmhand whose family used to own the property is the one who longs for her and believes he’s her true love. She, however, has other ideas and is into a famous rock star she’s been assigned to cover.

Two young town girls are in love with the rock star and spy on the him and his new journalist love, trying to wreak havoc.  It’s kind of like a Woody Allen movie with a happy ending and very heavy, hard-to-decipher English accents (and one stereotypical American).

ONE REAGAN

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**** UPDATE, 11/13/10, 10:10 p.m.: Just returned from seeing “Skyline,” and while I can see why they didn’t screen it for critics, it wasn’t bad. I’ve seen far worse, and I liked it much better than “Morning Glory” (see my review above).

Eric Balfour (whom you will recognize from TV’s “24”) and Donald Faison (whom you’ll recognize from TV’s “Scrubs”) are childhood friends who’ve reunited at Faison’s luxe Los Angeles high-rise condo. Faison is a showbiz success and has invited Balfour and his girlfriend to visit for a party and to try to convince him to join him in L.A. Soon, however, mysterious lights begin descending from the sky, which turn out to be outer space spaceships and giant monstrous aliens. The light hypnotizes and consumes people, and the monsters are invading apartments and killing people, in addition to destroying Los Angeles. What will they do? How will they escape? Will they escape?

This is my kind of movie, until the ending, which was grotesque and not necessary, though I could see it. It should have ended prior to that scene, but otherwise, it really wasn’t that bad. It was entertaining and definitely an escape. Plus, I loved the way it was shot.

ONE REAGAN

Watch the trailer . . .