Stop! That! Train!

Bluesky

Two best friends fall on hard times when their employer, Stank Rail, ceases trading. It did only serve three destinations, and one of them finally succumbed to a mine fire. It was more than a job, a dream come true for best friends Tess (Ginger Minj) and DeeDee (Jujubee). Those are themselves somewhat pseudonymous, as the film is a product of Ru Paul's Drag Race. One does wonder if there might have been a possibility of a racing film (Fast & Fabulous, if you will), but instead we've got a disaster movie on a locomotive. That's 'disaster movie, in the same vein as Airplane!, where the eponymous transport is more properly a vehicle for jokes.

Properly titled with three exclamation marks, Stop! That! Train! is perhaps most complex typographically. With a distance not less than 2195 and a half miles covered in its 90 minutes its headlong rush is almost twice the speed of sound. Which means that the laughter it generates would be lost in its wake were it not for the metronomic regularity of its mirth. I laughed, out loud, and several times, and I'm not Drag Race adjacent enough to get what I assume are other jokes based on playing against type or that require familiarity with the fashion-forward format or its fans.

There were, I assume, folk I might recognise, though one of the recurring jokes is based on just that, and I did, just about, find that familiar. A throwaway line about 'Six Flags Guantanamo Bay' wasn't just amusing as a concept but if my vexillology holds as accurate as the Texas-based theme-park chain that it'd be part of. A couple of original musical numbers made me tap my feet, and a flashback that features a line about the size of the US got even funnier when I double-checked the timeline of territorial accession.

In terms of modernity that profusion of commas at the start of the previous paragraph might have you wondering about generative AI. I have been vexing editors for decades without it and envy Frank Herbert his prescience for conceiving of the Butlerian Jihad while writing before Microsoft Word or cookie-popups. I mention it though as there's been some controversy about its use in some special effects shots. That's a consequence in part of cost-saving, the market model that means bidders are trying to undercut both each other and themselves is yet another race to the bottom. It's also somewhat ironic, as one of the key features of drag in the modern era is the personal creativity - indeed one of the comic sequences is our erstwhile heroines attempting to construct uniforms to join Glamazonian Rail.

There's a succession of stock footage of rolling stock at the start, and this might be unique in the annals for not using a train entering a tunnel as part of an innuendo montage. Those are followed by a handful of exterior shots that does include the improbably-dimensioned Glamazonian Express rolling over bridges over Los Angeles' concrete canyons. Later ones include nods to things like The Wizard Of Oz but the bulk of the action takes place in deluxe interiors. Far from cramped, the surroundings suggest that they're trying to compensate for the desaturation of Snowpiercer by carrying hue enough for two.

At the head of it all is President Gagwell (RuPaul) whose White House has clearly been taking "walk and talk" lessons from The West Wing. The out-takes over the credits hark back to the work of Jackie Chan and Adam McKay. The work of Adam Shankman that probably most fills the implied cinematic Venn Diagram is 2005's The Pacifier but they all share an earnestness and a willingness to be silly. This film might be stupid, but it's clever with it.

There are references to 'The Rail Force' and while that contains digs at both the current incumbent of the Oval Office and The Great Communicator but train nerds and Strategic Arms Limitation Talks fans alike might recall the Peacekeeper Rail Garrison. Truth is often stranger than fiction, and the Cold War was stranger than that. That's all extraneous detail for what amounts to shallow setup for the word 'caboose', but I assume that if you know your Marcia Marcia Marcia from your Symone in the same way I know my Martin MGM-1 Matador from my Salamanca you'd doubtless be delighted by the detail in other jokes.

Writing duo Christina Friel and Connor Wright's best known work is probably animated series Grimsburg, and while there's almost certainly been some improvisation the cartoon sensibility isn't just in the primary colours and frequency of funny.

To lift the setup from another of the film's running jokes, I'll give it to you straight - I laughed. I'd be amazed if there wasn't something here to amuse anyone willing to get on board. It's brief enough that it never runs out of steam, and one suspects that it'd well enjoyed in a group. Though it's likely to be most appealing to fans of Drag Race, and so for them represent a return, if you're looking for something to entertain this could be just the ticket.

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