Stop! That! Train!: It’s OK for Movies to Be Gay and Stupid

It’s the kind of movie you see with your Good Judy and drink warm White Claws you snuck into the theater in your Marc Jacobs The Tote Bag. It’s Airplane! for twinks that got groomed on Grindr, bisexual girls with boyfriends, and chronically online millennial gay men. It’s 92 minutes of lowbrow gay fun that churns out jokes as fast as the titular train. Stop! That! Train! didn’t throw the first brick at Stonewall, but who says it had to?

Directed by Adam Shankman and written by Christina Friel & Connor Wright, Stop! That! Train! takes us to a gay musical world where RuPaul is president and rail travel is fabulous. The film follows best friends Tess (Ginger Minj) and DeeDee (Jujubee), who, after losing their stewardess jobs on Stank Rail, sneak aboard the crew of the Glamizonian Express. When a “Stormaganza” (translation: gay hurricane) forms directly in the path of the Glamazonian Express, threatening to send the passengers crashing into a nuclear power plant in Florida, Tess and DeeDee must form alliances–not unlike their Drag Race origins–with the bitchy first-class stewardesses (Symone, Brooke Lynn Hytes, Marcia Marcia Marcia) to stop the train. As the storm rages on, President Gagwell (RuPaul) must set aside her campaign slogan, “She Fun,” and risk her approval ratings falling to “Lea Michelle 2020” levels to help save the day. It is basically the plot of Unstoppable (2010), featuring Chris Pine and Denzel Washington, if it were soaked in amyl nitrite. You should see this movie drunk—or at least on three beta-blockers.

The most absurd part of the film (and there are plenty) is the idea that America could ever have a functioning high-speed rail that could get from Los Angeles to Florida in just a few hours. Honey, I can’t even get from Bushwick to Park Slope in that amount of time. The first of the two musical numbers in the film introduces the Glamazonian Express as “Amtrak if it was gay,” although trains are already pretty gay: fabulous uniforms, window yearning, sex tourism, etc.

Shankman relies on his many cameos to make viewers feel as if they are in a game to see how many niche queer celebs they can recognize. Between Lisa Rinna, Nicole Richie, and hot Instagram Reels comedian Evan Mulrooney, you need to be gay or chronically online to recognize everyone. Perhaps the gayest reference in the film is the Glamazonian Express’ crash point being beloved actor Laurie Metcalf’s Florida house.

“I want joy. I want people to laugh and have a moment of respite from all the insanity going on in the world right now.” Shankman told Bleeker Street. RuPaul also echoed the same sentiment: “This movie is important to me because we all need to laugh, now more than ever before.” I hear that, but I don’t think Stop! That! Train! needs the “now more than ever” treatment. While it’s unprecedented that a feature film with drag at the helm gets a wide theatrical release, there’s no larger statement here beyond slapstick fun, even with a drag queen president. If we can have an innocuous 7th installment of Scary Movie, we can have a film for and by drag queens and Laurie Metcalf that is just dumb gay fun and nothing more.

Earlier this month, filmmaker and VFX artist Gloria Cook called out the film for using generative AI in a series of detailed tweets, which Shankman refuted in an oddly worded Instagram post: “It’s come to my attention that there is some online speculation that Stop! That! Train! is full of fully generative Al shots and I’m here to tell you this is patently not true,” he wrote. “There are a sum total of ZERO shots conceived by AI in the movie. We employed hundreds of VFX artists who all killed themselves getting this out for release, and not one job was taken out of human hands.”

Twitter and Reddit users argued that the statement seems intentionally vague around the film’s use of AI and what constitutes “fully generative AI” vs. AI-assisted VFX. The conversation points to an impending issue facing the industry, and the discourse is already giving me a headache. I hope the film’s VFX is just lazy craftsmanship because nothing ruins queer joy like Anthropic. RuPaul has already committed enough environmental atrocities (re: His Wyoming fracking empire). He doesn’t need to add generative AI to the list.

Discourse aside, the performances remain the heart. Shankman gives the cast room to play with the inherent campiness of the disaster movie genre. We’re right at home in the World of Wonder cinematic universe. After you see Stop! That! Train! you should find your local drag queens and Venmo them one million dollars, and throw a brick through the window of a Capital One Cafe.

I am excited to watch Stop! That! Train! again, this time drunk at the infamous AMC Empire 25 in Times Square on opening night with all my girls, my boyfriend, and my boyfriend’s boyfriend. Happy Pride!