Review: 'Stop! That! Train!' adds a campy spin to the 'Airplane!' disaster-spoof genre, with 'RuPaul's Drag Race' alums and a lot of cameos

The wild and wacky “Stop! That! Train!” is a broad, goofy parody of ‘70s disaster movies that puts a lot of faith in the comedy stylings of several alums of “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” including RuPaul Charles themself.

The action takes place aboard the Glamazonian Express, a high-priced high-speed train where every rail attendant worth their tray tables wants to work. Tess (played by Ginger Minj) and Deedee (played by Jujubee) work, instead, at a low-rent rival company, Stank Rail. But when that rail line shuts down unexpectedly, Tess and Deedee hustle their way into an open job at Glamazonan — despite objections from the first-class crew, led by the haughty Amber (Brock Hayhoe). 

At U.S. Rail headquarters, though, one of the dispatchers, Donna Dusk (Rachel Bloom), sees trouble ahead — a massive weather event, with the technical name Stormaganza. Unfortunately, her bosses, all men, don’t believe Donna’s warnings and mock her for thinking she’s smart. Donna persists, though, and contacts the Glamazonian Express’ conductor, Davenport (Chris Parnell), to warn of the storm the train is about to encounter.

Also on board the Express are a kid with a wayward scorpion, a famous actress (played by famous actress Sarah Michelle Gellar) who thinks people recognize her, a sex-starved passenger (Missi Pyle), and Davenport’s dumb-but-gorgeous assistant conductor, Cal (Brian Jordan Alvarez) — for whom Deedee pines.

News of the impending danger reaches the Oval Office, where President Judy Gagwell — that’s RuPaul — is worried the disaster will be a catastrophe for her approval ratings, knocking them down to “Lea Michelle, 2020.”

Director Adam Shankman (“Hairspray”) and writers Christina Friel and Connor Wright eagerly jump into all the LGBTQ-coded humor 90 minutes of screen time will allow. A low percentage of the jokes land, but there are so many of them that a few still hit the target. And when all else fails, the filmmakers resort to a string of cameos to generate some chuckles of recognition.

“Stop! That! Train!” follows as its model the Rosetta Stone of parody films, “Airplane!” The cast of drag stars made me think of the unsung hero of “Airplane!,” Stephen Stucker, who played Johnny, the one over-the-top comic performer in a room full of actors who were performing seriously. (Example: When Lloyd Bridges’ airport director Steve McCroskey shows Johnny a map and asks, “What do you make of this?”, Stucker’s Johnny replies, “Oh, I can make a hat, or a brooch, or pterodactyl wings!”)

“Stop! That! Train!” plays like it cast a room full of Stephen Stuckers. (The original, alas, died in 1986 at age 38, from AIDS.) And that approach to the comedy the problem — “Airplane!” worked so well because the stars behaved as if everything they said was deadly serious, and the cast here leans too far into the camp. The exception is Bloom as the harried train dispatcher, who in going deadpan gets the movie’s best laughs.

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‘Stop! That! Train!’

★★1/2

Opens Friday, June 12, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for sexual material, language, some drug material and brief nudity. Running time: 90 minutes.