Author Archive for Scooter

We open on gratuitous shots of smoldering train wrecks, complete with fake TV coverage of them. Then we see a school bus that just happens to stall out on a railroad track survive a near-miss with a train whose brakes are fried. What does this have to do with Atomic Trains? I think it’s setting up the fact that all the trains in this movie are in crappy condition. This is central to the first 2/3 of the plot.

The first 2/3 of the plot begins when the bad (you can tell by his trench coat and goatee) money-grubbing head of a shipping company puts an ancient (and armed) Russian nuclear bomb aboard a train headed for Denver. He lists the package as being “caviar” in order to avoid having to have it properly shipped and insured. He makes sure it’s cozily packed among crates of sodium and other highly volatile chemicals, on the car adjoining a flatbed loaded with barrels of nuclear waste and other explosive chemicals (as well as crates ominously marked “zirconium.”) Uh-oh! The brakes on the train are gone! It’s going to crash, with all of its crew aboard, and detonate the bomb! What are we going to do? Well for starters, we can learn the histories of everyone involved, and play “Guess the Goner:” The Token Black Guy on the way to his wedding is going to get it for sure {Rule of Movie Making #213: Token Black Guys are always among the first to go}. The guy with the grandkids might make it, but the red-haired rookie is definitely dead meat.

Meanwhile, John Seger (Lowe) Our Protagonist, an agent for the NTSB (we don’t learn what this is an acronym for until the film is almost over. I think it’s National Train Safety Board or something) is having domestic troubles. His wife’s ex-husband (Morales) is a pain in the butt, his attempts at bonding with his step son (the revoltingly angelic Sean Smith) are not flying too well, and he can’t pry his attitude-laden teenage daughter loose from her Aryan Hanson-esque boyfriend. Things couldn’t get any worse– until he gets recruited to help stop the Atomic Train.

John must then perform all sorts of death-defying feats in order to try to prevent nuclear devastation. He climbs down a rope ladder from a helicopter onto a speeding train. He leaps from one speeding train to another. Unfortunately, no matter how many times he defies the laws of gravity, John can’t make the train stop. The train speeds along unfettered, causing the rest of the train crew members to seriously injure themselves by doing dangerous things like falling off chairs.

The President of the US (Edward Herrmann, who had lots of leadership experience playing FDR in Annie), gets involved in this crisis. Tense scenes between the Leader of the Free World and his aging staff erupt as Mr. Pres. tries to act in the best interest of his people in the face of adversity. Will derailing the train save the city? Will he have the Air Force shoot missiles at the train to save it? If the president had only listened to me shouting at the screen, he could have solved the problem in the first 15 minutes of the movie. Of course, if he had been smart enough to prevent unstable armed nuclear warheads from being transported on old defective trains, we could have spent 2 1/2 hours doing something more constructive. but such was not the case.

The president orders the train derailed, where the toxic and volatile chemicals ignite, threatening to detonate the nuclear bomb. Luckily, the chief of police, Token Black guy #2, is an expert at diffusing aged Russian atomic bombs. Can he save Denver in time? Are you on the edge of your seat yet? Ok, I’m going to spoil the next part. It’s fairly obvious, though, because we’re only up to the first 2/3 of the movie now. As the Laws of Moviemaking are strictly adhered to, Token Black Guy #2 is blown to smithereens. Had he been a white woman, he probably would have de-fused the bomb in time and saved the town, the universe, and his dog. Unfortunately, he couldn’t overcome the Plight Of the Token Movie Black Guy, and, along with the city of Denver, in a blinding explosion of stock footage proportions, was annihilated.

This brings us to the last third of the film– the Aftermath of Destruction. John must now reunite his family and save all from the strips of newspaper falling from the sky– I mean fallout. Luckily, John and his family have survived the nuclear blast by hiding out in a stack of cement culverts that were able to block the nuclear wind. They must now get to a refugee camp. But how? all of the vehicles built after 1979 are useless due to their now fried computer chips! They must now split up– Bratty Teen girl and Angelic Boy go with John’s wife’s ex-husband on a hotwired vintage Harley. Teenage Girl’s wimpy dying boyfriend and John’s wife go with a priest in a school bus full of refugees. Conveniently, the driver of a nice old MG dies at the wheel right in front of John. He jumps in the car and races to catch up with the kids & ex-husband, as they head for a shortcut through the Abandoned Mine.

Luckily, the electricity is still on at the abandoned mine, so the lights are all on. They allow everyone to happily bond before the Ex-husband falls into a mine shaft and die while saving his son. More perilous stuff happens, everyone is reunited, the dying boyfriend snaps out of his coma, and everyone participates in a barn raising. The End.

Wow. That’s all I can say. This was 2 disaster movies in one! This is a pure, unadulterated 2 1/2 hours of low budget made-for-TV cheese. It’s brilliant! You’ll stare in wonderment when the Ex-husband has a showdown with some mean militia members! You’ll be at the edge of your seat as Token Black Guy #2 races to de-fuse the atomic bomb while his feet are aflame! You’ll ask yourself “what were the filmmakers thinking? Why weren’t they working on a sequel to the Nancy Kerrigan Story?”