The biggest surprise of the recent release of “The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3,” with Denzel Washington and John Travolta, isn’t in its plotline or the differences with the 1974 original. Rather it’s in its box office: the film ranked third in its first week, behind the second week of “The Hangover” and the third week of “Up.”

When a major studio summer action release with not one but two reliably bankable stars can’t overtake a cartoon and a goofball comedy with Ed Helms, something must be going on. What that is beats me. The end of the knowable reality? The decline of cinematic civilization? The rise of Ed Helms? Danged if I know. Not my job. Move along, there’s nothing to see here.

As directed by Tony Scott, a reliable action producer-director (”Top Gun,” “Crimson Tide,” last year’s “Déjà Vu”) and brother of Ridley Scott (a better list: “Alien,” “Blade Runner,” “Black Hawk Down”), the movie is packed with zippy camera work, vertigenous helicopter shots, loud noises and shock cuts that keep the audience on the edge of its collective seat. There’s some humor in the script, and the performances are reliable and entertaining.

Conceptually, the idea that a hijacking of a subway could take place, let alone work, is given the same skeptical eye it earned in the original: Those guys are in a tunnel under the city of new York, how do they expect to get away with it? By stroke of good fortune, the 1974 original version was on cable last weekend, so watching them in relative close proximity affords audiences the chance to compare the two. (There was also a 1998 television version, with Edward James Olmos and Vincent D’Onofrio, but this I haven’t seen. Anyone?)

First off, the casting. The deskbound hero in 1974 was Walter Matthau, the lumbering Everyman, and the villain the sinister Englishman Robert Shaw. Matthau as Zachary Garber is given virtually no back story, but he’s given something better: the worst clothing ensemble a hero has ever worn in a motion picture – at least it gets my vote. A yellow, orange and green plaid shirt (is that flannel?), set off by a bright yellow tie. What were they thinking? This is so ugly it immediately brings him down to our level, and maybe a step or two below.

He is also casually but harmlessly racist, at least in the context of the early 1970s. He calls a group of Japanese transit officials he’s taking on a tour of the Transit Authority control center “monkeys,” thinking they can’t understand English anyway. When it turns out they can it’s supposed to be a joke, and the joke’s on Garber.

Later, after incessantly calling a police captain he’s met only on the phone “Sir,” he finally meets the captain and finds he’s black. Another big laugh, presumably. But shouldn’t he call a police inspector “Sir” anyway? The implication is, not if he’s black, not in 1974.

Moving forward, Denzel Washington’s role as Walter (not Zachary) Garber is given plenty of back story – too much, some might think. And the Japanese that Matthau took on tour? Turns out Washington may or may not have take a bribe from some Japanese subway manufacturers in Tokyo. Interesting recycling of themes, that.

In today’s movie, the overt racism is replaced by ethic identity, as the loyal Brooklyn Irish subway driver is replaced at the help by the Puerto Rican criminal, and the police hostage negotiator (John Torturro) is repeatedly called a “greaseball” because of his Italian last name.

Something strange happens with another character as well, the gang member known as “Mr. Green,” a former subway driver recruited for just that skill. In 1974 Martin Balsam took the role, playing the part with a head cold that eventually gives him away. 35 years later, the part is played by Luis Guzman, who instead of a cold for some inexplicable reason has a large white bandage across his nose. What is it about law-breaking subway drivers and noses?

In 1974 Robert Shaw’s Bernard Ryder is a tense, calculating British mercenary apparently bored enough between imperialist escapades to hold up a subway. His motivations are opaque, his manner cold. Ultimately his dénouement is oddly unsatisfying, and it comes 20 minutes before the finale of the film.

John Travolta, on the other hand, is anything but cold. When he’s silent he smolders, when he’s talking he’s loud and profane. In fact he delivers such a plethora of profanities (to be sure, the entire cast is less than polite) that I again wondered if the Church of Scientology gave points for curse words. (Similarly Tom Cruise’s portly, and profane, producer in “Tropical Thunder.”) And, like a good modern villain, he has a shady past not as a mercenary but a stock market trader.

There are other similarities whose differences are intriguing: the ransom money is $1 million in 1974, but had risen to $10 million in 1994’s TV version (according to IMDB). Here, the $10 million ransom is but a down payment on a far larger take engineered by bad guy Ryder, who has a more modern perspective on the big rip-off.

The biggest difference is not just of scale, but of tone. The 1974 movie is a heist film, building up the suspense along with human interest. This summer’s movie is almost entirely visceral, delivering us loud noises, thundering trains, multiple car crashes – the police car carrying the ransom money from the bank crashes once in 1974, three times in 2009 – and graphic killings. And its undercurrent of the terrorist threat makes it even more contemporary, for what that’s worth.

Suspense vs. thrills, tension vs. terrorism. But the question remains: What makes them think they can hold up a subway train in a tunnel under New York City, and get away with it?