What’s It About

Two train stewardess BFFs switch from a dull railway to the luxurious Glamazonian Express. During a massive storm, they must work with snooty first-class crew and President Gagwell to prevent disaster in LA.

MOVIESinMO REVIEW

There is a moment near the middle of Stop! That! Train! when President Judy Gagwell, played by none other than RuPaul Charles herself, receives the worst possible news about a runaway luxury bullet train barreling toward downtown Los Angeles. She listens carefully to her aide, played by a wonderfully desperate Matt Rogers, and then says the four words that perfectly describe this entire film: “Tell it to me gay.” The aide just screams. It is the kind of joke that lands so clean and so fast that you almost miss it, and that is exactly the speed at which director Adam Shankman runs this whole production, ninety-two minutes of wall-to-wall silliness that rarely slows down long enough for you to clock the jokes that miss. Stop! That! Train! arrives in the summer of 2026 as part of a small but growing wave of disaster movie parodies trying to recapture the wild energy of Airplane! and The Naked Gun. The film was developed by World of Wonder, the production company behind RuPaul’s Drag Race, and it shows, every frame carries that same in-house confidence, the feeling of a team that knows its audience deeply and builds toward them with real affection. Written by Christina Friel and Connor Wright, who also worked on Hazbin Hotel, the script keeps its structure simple so the comedy can breathe. A massive weather system called a Stormaganza is heading directly toward the Glamazonian Hyper Speed Rail, a long, pink, high-speed bullet train carrying some of the richest and most ridiculous passengers in America. Someone has to stop it. Naturally, that someone turns out to be two broke train stewardesses who were not even supposed to be on board. Tess and DeeDee, played by Ginger Minj and Jujubee (two of Drag Race’s most popular queens), are the two stewardesses who serve as the film’s emotional anchor. They spend their whole Hope Diamond Airline career at the low-budget Stank Rail Airlines yearning for a better life, but when Stank Rail suddenly goes out of business, just as one of the characters states, like Spirit Airlines, they must make their own costumes and temporarily disguise themselves as crew members to get onto the Glamazon Express. There are three first-class flight attendants working on this train who take the whole “mean girls” attitude to the next level: Amber is played (with little enthusiasm) by Brooke Lynn Hytes; Ayshleiygh is a creative spelling joke that Symone handles well; and Alli (who has little personality) is portrayed by Marcia Marcia Marcia. These three women treat the front of the train like it is an exclusive nightclub, and the conflict between their snobbishness and the determination of Tess and DeeDee to get along provides most of the film’s funniest moments. Minj and Jujubee, true friends, have an incredible dynamic. Minj has both passion and affection that help her to support the friendship, and, at the end of the film, she gets an awesome dance sequence that marks the full emergence of her character. Jujubee also does a fabulous job in portraying his character, DeeDee, who is funny, charming, disheveled, and good-hearted, and always seems to put forth more than adequate effort. Both of these drag performers are seasoned comic performers from their time on Drag Race, and they have proven, without any doubt, that they can lead a feature-length movie. Like passengers at various times, the supporting characters come and go this way. Donna Dusk, the storm analytics specialist and only character taking Stormaganza seriously, played by Rachel Bloom, is quite funny. Some of the information dominant characters complete their scenes very funny, but out of the way, a very funny scene is stolen by Latrice Royale as Barb, an attitude-filled dispatcher looking for something to take her place. In a very memorable example of delivery of humor, when Barb states that she could pivot into “light sex work” or sell her hair if she loses her job, Royale presented the line with such precise timing that it’s unclear if she knew how much to push the comedy envelope and cross from very edgy to regressive. She never crossed that line. Conductor Davenport (played by Chris Parnell) is also a very funny character; however, he disappears from the film way too early. And then there is RuPaul. Playing President Gagwell in a pantsuit that carries echoes of both Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris, RuPaul moves through the film with a presence that the rest of the cast simply cannot match. The famous campaign slogan, “She Fun”, works because RuPaul is actually funny on screen, not just famous. A West Wing-style hallway walk where aides keep piling increasingly absurd objects into the president’s arms, briefing papers give way to a bowling pin, a board game, a stuffed animal, lands because RuPaul plays it completely straight while everything around her descends into chaos. The film needs more of her. The cast has an extensive collective of performers and is often seen with Sarah Michelle Gellar for a continuing gag; it becomes apparent that whenever Gellar’s character appears, no one will recognize her. This results in continual laughter whenever this happens. Others, such as Joel McHale, Nicole Sullivan, Natasha Leggero, Monét X Change, Michelle Visage, and even Charo, come through for a few gags per act; they don’t overstay their appearances. The common denominator throughout Stop! That! Train!, despite its limited production budget and varying degrees of success for some of the jokes, is a love for the queens it presents. Shankman has filmed all of Minj’s, Jujubee’s, and all of their drag queens with great attention to detail – they are always shot with great costume detail and lighting, never as an afterthought. The movie laughs with these women, never at them – and even in 2026, this will still be a distinction that has weight. Not every scene works, not every joke gets a laugh, and the type of spoof being used is similar to the formula being used in Airplane!; it has been done so often throughout the years that many of the blue jokes seem to have lost their “razor” edge. However, when Stop! That! Train! connects with an audience in a theatre, it connects in a way that makes the space feel like one big room of joy. That alone should help you get to your destination.

OUR RATING – A TRAIN-TASTIC 6.5