Kimber Myers
This RuPaul production is like Airplane! in full drag, bringing a bedazzled approach to the Zucker- Abrahams-Zucker style of spoofs. But if you’re anyone other than Ginger Rogers, doing it backwards and in heels provides a lot more opportunities to trip and fall. Stop! That! Train! throws joke after joke at the wall, but almost none of them land, which feels like a statistical impossibility, especially when considering its talented cast filled with RuPaul’s Drag Race stars, queer pop culture heroes, and celebrity cameos galore. This comedy should be goofy, campy fun, but the end result is simply a trainwreck.
Tess (Ginger Minj) and DeeDee (Jujubee) are stewardesses who have been best gal pals since they met in the train hostess academy, and their bond only deepened while working together for Stank Rail. When that low-class line stops running, they jump at the chance to work for the Glamazonian Express, America’s first bullet train and the most luxurious way to travel on land. It’s not enough that they have to deal with a trio of bitchy Glamazonian stewardesses voguing down the aisle of the train (Symone, Brooke Lynn Hytes, Marcia Marcia Marcia) or the entitled passengers who want more drinks. Beleaguered train traffic controller Donna Dusk (Rachel Bloom) warns them they’re also headed straight into the path of a mega weather event aka the “Stormaganza,” which puts the fate of the entire train—and maybe the world—in Tess and DeeDee’s perfectly manicured hands. It’s up to these two best friends to … stop! that! train! before it crashes and takes the approval rating of President Judy Gagwell (RuPaul Charles) down with it.
Director Adam Shankman and the producing team behind RuPaul’s Drag Race pack Stop! That! Train! with stars; whether you’re a fan of the competition show or not, you’ll recognize plenty of familiar faces. Sarah Michelle Gellar plays a famous actress, Brian Jordan Alvarez plays a hunky conductor, and Matt Rogers is President Gagwell’s press secretary, plus you get Charo, Guy Branum, June Diane Raphael, Raven-Symoné, and more appearing in small roles. Yet, unsurprisingly, Stop! That! Train! is probably going to be most enjoyable for devoted viewers of RuPaul’s Drag Race or those who are watching after imbibing too many mimosas at a drag brunch.
It should be enjoyably silly, but instead this drag comedy drags; its 95-minute running time feels like it lasts roughly the length of a cross-country train trip. I wanted to be gagged by every gag, but most of its lines don’t even merit a polite chuckle. There’s the inevitable blooper reel that lasts the entirety of the credits, plus the most useless post-credits scene since whatever Marvel’s last movie was. The special effects are so bad that they have people accusing the filmmakers of using AI slop, but they’re mostly just cheap and poorly executed, even for an indie film. Shankman has made a lot of terrible studio movies (Rock of Ages is a particularly low point), but the script from Christina Friel and Connor Wright might be the real culprit for why this is so unbearable. The press notes say that no one in the cast felt the need to improvise, but maybe they should have? Most of the actors are really funny elsewhere, but there’s just not much they can do with what they’re given.
Yet for all its flaws, Stop! That! Train! generally has its heart in the right place (other than when it uses a fat girl eating a tub of cottage cheese as shorthand for Stank Rail’s shitty state). At a time when drag queens are inexplicably under attack by the right, they aren’t the targets of the humor in Stop! That! Train! (The butt of the jokes are mostly straight white women, which is a fate we have certainly earned.) Instead, it’s so great to see queer joy on screen without an ounce of seriousness in a time that is tough for the community, but I just wish the movie itself had evoked more of that emotion in the audience.
D+
“Stop! That! Train!” is in theaters Friday.
