An industry out of ideas does another remake. Dipping back to 1974, director Tony Scott (Déjà vu, Man on Fire) repackages the so-so story of The Taking of Pelham 123 with two aging but still popular stars and tweaks the plot with a modern spin.

Denzel Washington is Walter Garber, an on probation subway system honcho accused of taking a bribe. He's on duty when John Travolta's Ryder and his batch of baddies hijack a New York City subway train. Sitting in an unreachable, easy to defend section of track, they threaten to kill hostages one at a time if a trainload of money isn't brought to them in an hour.

Unfortunately the hour isn't in real time.

Garber is in dispatch central and Ryder in the cab of the train. You are the omnipresent fly on the wall privy to both ends of their well-edited give-and-take conversation. Sometimes it's tense, sometimes it's warm and human, but it's never boring. Credit Washington who does cool, calm and collected better than anyone and Travolta's skill at over-the-top.

Though Scott adds some missing dimensions to his version, a copy is never as crisp and clear as the original. When the original is flawed and smeary, the copy can be indecipherable. Like the original, The Taking of Pelham 123 struggles. The commandeered plot is like the film's train. When you first get on board it just sits on the track. Once the story begins moving you can predict each stop along the route.

Imagine That

Eddie Murphy is Evan, a financial adviser locked in an ego battle with rival Thomas Haden Church's Whitefeather. He's the usual distracted, all-business dad estranged from the ex-wife and delightful daughter Ella. During Evan's time with the little girl she keeps telling him that her invisible friends accessed by a magic blanket don't like the investments he's picking. When a crisis hits, Evan notices that the "friends" are dead-on accurate. That leads to a series of wonderful scenes where dad and daughter bond and where dad predictably learns what's really important and what isn't.

The number of times you've seen the story in this formulaic flick depends on your age.

Whether it's good or not depends on how tired you are of the concept and on how it is put together. In spite of the slow beginning, the sugary ending and Haden Church, this one isn't bad. It proves if you stick the right cute charismatic kid in a worn Disneyesque plot, twist it correctly and add Murphy in charm mode passé can be palatable. Even a curmudgeon like me enjoyed it -- Imagine That.

Skills like This

Max Solomon writes a horrible play. The premise and the dialogue are laughable. Max knows he can't write and decides to find a new profession. He robs a bank. Deciding this is his new, best destiny Max embarks on a career or crime. Complicating that decision is a serious love connection between bank robber and the teller he robs and friends that know what he's done. Impressed by Max's bravado his friends get sucked into his modern-day Robin Hood fantasy.

Skills like This begins with an outrageous concept and takes it to the pun-definitely- intended max. You know going in that the film written by co-stars and first time writers Spencer Berger and Gabriel Tigerman and directed by first-timer Monty Miranda is going to be indy-standard-quirky.

This is where independent movies have a lot in common with mainstream movies and television sitcoms. Though packed with unpredictable characters, realism, slick, often-gritty dialogue and endings that have more in common with real life than happy ending happy Hollywood, independent films are still predictable. So in a way, the non-formula is formula.

Things that can only happen to characters in independent movies happen to these characters. It is the independent formula in its purest form and is one more brick in the wall of proof that you don't need millions of dollars and big name stars to make a quality movie.

It just takes skills like this.

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