The quality of John Travolta’s output can usually be attributed to the amount of facial hair he attaches around his dialogue hole.

Face/Off was ace/clean shaven; Swordfish was fairly good with his little happy trail and Battlefield Earth was a cesspool of sci-fi gobbledygook and ZZ Top beards. So with his German porno moustache, you know The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 isn’t going to be an easy ride.

Similarly, you can usually tell the quality of recent Denzel Washington productions by which Scott brother is directing him (in this case the rubbish one). So, Tony Scott remakes the 70’s heist thriller, set on a train with Travolta going all batshit at every available opportunity, while Washington throws his gut around in the face of adversity.

Many critics (if not all of them), have made comparisons to the original version of the same name, and as it may come as a shock to many but we haven’t seen it. Sure, we caught a bit of the subsequent first remake starring Battlestar Galactica’s Eddy James Olmos on late night television but, like this sentence, that was mainly irrelevant.

Going into Pelham with a clear and empty mind – maybe the type of audience they aimed for – made reviewing it refreshing. Unfortunately, going into this latest slice of kinetic moviemaking from Scott, it appears that he hasn’t toned down his new millennia fondness for eviscerating the senses. Pelham is stylised to the point of mundane, forcing the film to come to a halt along with its characters.

While much of the action is locked down to a couple of settings, this seems ideal for a slow-burning thriller, the type that more restrained directors would have handled more competently. Instead, it seems heavy-handed and completely devoid of anything remotely approaching tension, like some modern teen slasher flick. Trying to shoot, blow-up or create action out of a static setting. This should be a verbal tete-a-tete. Instead, it’s just Travolta gurning like the tit of tits.

The cast is fairly watchable, added friends John Turturro and James Gandolfini pop-up, not just to confuse our spell-check, but also to show exactly how to make nothing out of supporting roles.

With a few plot contrivances chucked in for good measure, this film fails to get moving. One annoyance that sticks in the mind is the character who managed to get a perfect wireless signal inside the New York subway system. Baffling, when we can’t even piggyback off of our neighbours.

This film is just uneven – performances are either dull or over-the-top, while the plot meanders when it should intrigue. Unsettling facial fuzz aside, this appears to be a film that forgot its objectives, trying to make an action film out of a story that doesn’t lend itself to the genre.

Its only achievement is its constant use of the term ‘motherfucker’. It couldn’t be more out of place if Travolta burst into an elderly relative’s funeral and repeatedly screamed it at the coffin. Which he’d probably do – he’s bloody bananas!

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Right, first an admission. The Hangover is the top movie at the weekend box office this week. That’s not the admission.

The admission is that The Hangover was also the top movie at the weekend box office last week as well. But we said that it was beaten by Up because the numbers were quite close and nobody worked it out properly for a few days. So sorry.

Anyway, The Hangover is the top movie at the US weekend box office this week. Unless there’s been another mistake and really it’s Up. Or Drag Me To Hell. Or ET. Whatever.

It doesn’t really matter one way or the other. The Hangover has now been top of the weekend box office for two weeks instead of one, and we happen to think it’s very well deserved indeed. Because it stars Ed Helms, who used to be on The Daily Show which we love. And it also stars Zach Galifianakis, who is about as close to being a genius as we’re willing to admit. And it also stars Bradley Cooper, who was in He’s Just Not That Into You, which is… oh, hang on a minute, that was rubbish. We hate The Hangover. It’s full of turds.

Here’s the weekend box office top five…

1 – The Hangover (Honestly, we’re thrilled that The Hangover has made Zach Galifianakis a star of Will Ferrell proportions. Just a few more years and we can pretend that his shtick is getting old and monotonous in an attempt to make us look cool and ahead of the crowd too, even though we secretly still like him. Hooray) $33,415,000

2 - Up (So, it looks like Up has gone down at the weekend box office this week. Ahahahaha. Ahahahaha. Ahahahaha. Aha. Ahahahahahahaha. Ahaaaaaaaaaa. Fingers crossed that it drops out of the weekend box office top five completely next week, because we’re going to keep doing this joke every week until it does) $30,515,000

3 - The Taking Of Pelham 1 2 3 (We believe that The Taking Of Pelham 1 2 3 was only remade because it’s referenced in the lyrics to Sure Shot by The Beastie Boys. In which case we’re also looking forward to the forthcoming remake of the heartbreaking 1943 Kurosawa classic Bullshit Mic That’s Made Out Of Plastic) $25,000,000

4 - Night At The Museum: Battle Of The Smithsonian (We still haven’t watched Night At The Museum: Battle Of The Smithsonian. But we did once see a four-year-old literally piss herself with fear while watching a museum’s 3D audio-visual reconstruction of the big bang, which we’re willing to bet is better) $9,600,000

5 - Land Of The Lost (The fact that Land Of The Lost is one of the flops of the summer proves something that we’ve long thought – Will Ferrell’s shtick is getting old and monotonous) $9,153,000

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