Synopsis: When a catastrophic “Stormaganza” sends their glitzy high-speed train barreling toward Celebration, Florida, two coach-class besties must team up with the snooty first-class crew to save the day.
Stars: RuPaul, Ginger Minj, Jujubee, Brooke Lynn Hytes, Latrice Royale, Marcia Marcia Marcia, Monét X Change, Symone, Brian Jordan Alvarez, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Lisa Rinna, Drew Droege, Nicole Richie, Chris Parnell
Director: Adam Shankman
Writer: Christina Friel & Connor Wright
Rated: R
Running Length: 92 minutes
Movie Review in Brief: The first movie from the Drag Race universe is cheap, tacky, and a total blast: 92 minutes of expertly executed camp led by Ginger Minj, Jujubee, and a scene-stealing Latrice Royale.
Stop! That! Train! Review: All Gas, No Brakes
The runiverse just pulled into the multiplex, and it packed sequins. Stop! That! Train! is the first feature to roll out of the RuPaul’s Drag Race universe. It shows up as a loud, glittery, gleefully silly disaster spoof built to make you cackle for a tight 92 minutes. The quick version of my Stop! That! Train! review is easy: she’s fun, she’s fast, and she truly does not care that you can see the seams. Came for the queens? Came for the camp? Either way, grab a seat, because this thing is already leaving the station.
All Aboard the Glamazonian Express
The screenplay from Christina Friel & Connor Wright keeps it nice and simple. Best friends Tess (Ginger Minj, Hocus Pocus 2) and DeeDee (Jujubee) work on budget line Stank Rail until they luck into shifts on the glitzy Glamazonian Express. Then a “Stormaganza” threatens to send the whole high-speed mess hurtling toward catastrophe, and coach has to link arms with snooty first class to save the day. President Judy Gagwell (RuPaul) gets dragged into the chaos too. That’s all you’re getting out of me.
A little context, because it matters. World of Wonder, the company Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey founded back in 1991, has been the engine behind RuPaul’s Drag Race since 2009, and the duo’s documentary roots run deep. They even made The Eyes of Tammy Faye in 2000, the one RuPaul narrated, long before Hollywood handed that story an Oscar. So when these folks build a big, silly movie, they’re pulling from decades of knowing exactly how to put on a show.
The movie wears its influences like a feather boa. It’s chasing the spirit of the 1970s disaster pic and the Airplane! and The Naked Gun school of rapid-fire spoof, then doing its own glittery thing with all of it. Director Adam Shankman, the song-and-dance pro behind Rock of Ages, Disenchanted, and Hairspray, keeps the pace quick and the jokes quicker.
It understands something a lot of recent spoof reboots forget: the gag lands when it’s timely, sharp, and willing to laugh at itself first. (This is a lesson the atrocious 2026 revival of Scary Movie forgot entirely.)
The Queens Who Know How to Get the Job Done
If you’ve watched a single season of RuPaul’s Drag Race, you know the acting challenge is where reputations live or die. Every queen RuPaul invited here treats the assignment seriously. These aren’t sloppy performances dressed up as camp. They’re camp by design, written big and then goosed with extra flair by performers who know how to hit a mark and land a punchline.
Minj and Jujubee carry the whole thing, and they win you over fast. You’re on their side before the train even leaves the platform. The first-class mean girls are a dynamite trio: a deliciously icy Amber (Brooke Lynn Hytes), a scene-stealing Alli (Marcia Marcia Marcia, credited here as Marty Lauter), and a wickedly funny Ayshleiygh (Symone). Latrice Royale turns up as Barbra and keeps reappearing in a brand-new job every few scenes, which is the single funniest running bit in the movie.
The cameo bench is stacked. Brian Jordan Alvarez (M3GAN 2.0) is a dreamy doofus as Cal, the co-conductor DeeDee can’t stop crushing on, and the way the two of them keep literally colliding is a great sight gag. Bless Sarah Michelle Gellar of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame, who plays a “famous actress” nobody recognizes and runs that joke straight into the ground in the best possible way. Rachel Bloom (Your Place or Mine) is a hoot as weather tech Donna Dusk, ignored by everyone because, you know, she wears glasses. And RuPaul makes Gagwell, elected on the campaign slogan “She Fun!,” both commanding and completely ridiculous.
Not every car on this train is totally on the same track. The movie only hits the brakes when somebody shows up who isn’t on the same wavelength as the rest. Jesse Tyler Ferguson gets handed a few easy jokes and bricks them, and Matt Rogers is the one player who seems to be sweating to be funny while everyone around him makes it look effortless.
Tacky Train, Couture Gowns
Let’s be honest about the look. Shot in a brisk 19 days, the film feels even faster than that, and you never once forget you’re watching a soundstage doing its best train impression. The effects are cut-rate, the camera work is strictly functional, and the score won’t linger in your head. None of it sinks the picture, because the movie is in on the joke and moving too quickly for you to care.
What does shine is the glam. Costume designer Salvador Pérez Jr. cooks up some nifty looks, and the hair and makeup are gorgeous top to bottom. The handful of musical numbers are a blast too. Songwriter Leland and choreographer Jamal Sims, both Drag Race veterans, deliver a couple of proper “Rusical” moments, and Shankman’s dancer’s eye gives them real bounce. Honestly, I wanted two or three more of them. The script even credits Friel and Wright with packing in more gags than the blooper reel can keep up with.
She Fun, She Fast, and She’s in Theaters
Here’s the part I actually want to shout about. A movie like this, made by queer artists for an audience hungry to see itself, could have been dropped onto a streaming queue and forgotten. Instead it got a theatrical release, in Pride month no less, and that is worth celebrating. I only wish it had screened earlier so the buzz could build, because word of mouth is going to be this one’s best friend.
My one real gripe sits with the rating. There’s a single F-bomb that absolutely earns its place, and Drag Race fans will clock exactly which one. A couple of the others could have been trimmed for a PG-13 that would have let even more people climb aboard. Otherwise this is refreshingly clean for an R.
It’s an LGBTQ+ comedy that isn’t chasing shock, sex, or nudity. It just wants to make you laugh, and it does.
Now Sashay to the Box Office
So where does that leave us? Stop! That! Train! comes down to a simple truth. The thing is cheap, tacky, gloriously dumb, and one of the most purely fun times I’ve had at the movies in a minute. RuPaul gathered her sharpest, most beloved players, handed them to a director who knows how to keep a party moving, and let them throw a 92-minute glitter bomb at the screen.
You have plenty to choose from at the box office currently…and most of it will still be there in a few weeks. This likely won’t. Do yourself a favor and board this off-the-rails train and find your fun zone.
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