“Stop! That! Train!” is an inspired bit of lunacy that opens with thrilling music and images of trains, trains, and more trains. The titular train is the Glamazonian Express, America’s first transcontinental bullet train. As the film opens, two crew members are needed for a trip from Los Angeles to Celebration, Florida. (Depot announcements also indicate that trains are also heading to Six Flags, Guantanamo Bay, and Pyongyang, North Korea.)
Enter Tess (Ginger Minj) and DeeDee (Jujube), two plucky train hostesses who just lost their jobs at Stank Rail. So too did their colleague, Barbra (Latrice Royale), who keeps popping up, hysterically, in various odd jobs throughout the movie in one of the better running gags in “Stop! That! Train!”
Tess and DeeDee may be finally living their dream working in the opulence of the luxury train, but their former classmates, the queen bee Amber (Brock Hayhoe) and her minions, Alli (Marty Lauter) and Ayshleiygh (Symone), make their lives hell by treating them badly and doing mean things like taking all the milk for the coffee service. Making matters worse, train traffic controller Donna Dusk (Rachel Bloom) determines that there is going to be a Stormaganza — a hurricane, with a hailstorm, and multiple tornadoes — that spells disaster. As such, the train Must! Be! Stopped!
“Stop! That! Train!” plays up its over-the-top scenario for comedy, with clever wordplay: Charo, playing a sexy traffic controller, ‘natch, asks Donna to explain the Stormaganza in Spanish, while another coworker asks for Donna to translate the terror into Mandarin. There are also sight gags aplenty, such as one of the train’s literally fried brakes.
But the Stormaganza is of greatest concern to President Gagwell (RuPaul Charles), who fears becoming “the laughingstock of all high-speed rail countries” if the Glamazonian were to crash and any of its passengers were killed. Moreover, Madame President has “hot flashbacks” to a troubling incident from her past that involves a train accident she would best like to forget. (When revealed, it is both horrifying and hilariously told.)
Director Adam Shankman, working from a screenplay by Christina Friel and Connor Wright, keeps the jokes coming fast and furiously. One particularly funny bit is a confessional monologue by Conductor Davenport (Chris Parnell), detailing his marriage collapsing, and how he met friends by giving hand jobs under a bridge for H, which, he explains, is heroin.
In addition, the film features a romantic storyline, as DeeDee falls for the cute but dumb Cal (Brian Jordan Alvarez), who is the conductor “voted number one we want to see the dick of” in “Conductors We Want to See the Dick of” magazine. They lube up together in one scene when Cal has to drive the train after Conductor Davenport is stung by a passenger’s escaped support scorpion.
There are also two fun musical numbers that deliver drag queen fabulousness, including one addressing train safety.
But around the mid-point, when the Stormaganza takes over, “Stop! That! Train!” start to run low on gas, or coal, or oil, or electricity, or batteries, or whatever fuel choo-choos use to move forward, and the laugh-to-joke ratio starts to diminish. The action is just not as humorous as the comedy scenes, although there is a comically tense sequence where DeeDee is hanging outside the train window.
Some of the humor is just tired to begin with. A business person’s (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) interactions with a pregnant passenger sitting across from him are mostly predictable, as is a horny divorcee’s (Missy Pyle) various encounters with uninterested men. Even a bit about a famous actress (Sarah Michelle Geller) being miffed at not being recognized by anyone, ever, is not very funny the first time, much less the third.
The jokes land best when the actors play their roles seriously. Matt Rogers amuses as President Gagwell’s press secretary who get tripped up by a “game over” button, and Drew Droege is droll as a wealthy patron who is repeatedly displeased by other people’s behavior. And there is a terrific exchange between President Gagwell and Donna Dusk at a bar Barbra is tending.
The large ensemble cast includes cameos by Jerry O’Connell and Nicole Sullivan, as well as Nicole Richie, Lisa Rinna, and Raven-Symoné, among others. But the film coasts along on the energy of Ginger Minj’s Tess and Jujubee’s DeeDee, as well as RuPaul, who looks especially stunning upon arriving to help save the day, her reputation, and the lives of all the passengers, although not necessarily in that order. The actresses all know how to deliver a laugh line.
“Stop! That! Train” hits more than it misses, and the outtakes during the end credits are cute, too. Both witty and silly, this campy film provides a diverting 90 minutes.
“Stop! That! Train!” | Directed by Adam Shankman | Opening June 12 at the Metro Private Cinema; Alamo Drafthouse in Lower Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn; The AMC Empire 25, Lincoln Square, 34th Street, and Kips Bay; Regal Union Square, Essex Crossing, and UA Kaufman Astoria | Distributed by Bleeker Street.
