By Elias Savada.
Style only goes so far in the case of Bullet Train. It can’t make up for all the other problems, especially the leaky script, self-destructing humor, and bland visual effects.”
The bland zen-casual jokes that abound in Bullet Train — a boldly-stylized, hyper-exaggerated adaptation of popular Japanese crime writer Kotaro Isaka’s 2010 action-thriller Maria Belle — veer off the CGI railroad tracks early and never allow this crazy, kinetic, in-a-world-of-its-own movie to regain any footing in its own misguided reality. The prodigious amounts of battle choreography reveal the fast-paced Guy Ritchie-Edgar Wright-Quentin Tarantino vibe that director David Leitch (Deadpool 2, Atomic Blonde, John Wick, all much more likable than his new flick, which isn’t worth a single watch) has set his sights on, and only occasionally offers up a yuk-worthy moment. And that’s only when he counterpoints the action with some irreverent song selections such as Stayin’ Alive. 500 Miles, and I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles. Unfortunately, it is Zak Olkewicz’s self-indulgent screenplay that is the weak link that torpedoes Leitch’s playful execution, but the pair don’t makes this film exciting enough to recommend. Once I saw the inevitable failure here, my mind drifted during much of the movie’s 2+ hour journey aboard the high-speed Shinkansen from Toyko to Kyoto.
Ok, it could be worse, but when the ensemble cast is put through its harried, orgiastic, violent, and quite repetitive paces, the cliched effects mimic an overwrought Road Runner cartoon. It wears thin very quickly.
A motley bunch of assassins and thieves walk onto a train — or so the pitch might begin — and reminisce about their earlier (mis)adventures and crossed paths, in way too many extended flashbacks that highlight their hitmen careers and bold criminal escapades. Way too much time is spent on these grim or comic backstory shenanigans. As the story’s complexity barrels on, observant eyes will get blurred when viewers try to figure out who’s watching whom across the train’s aisle — mostly to grab a metal briefcase loaded with oodles of money. Also part of the mishmash are a kidnapped son of a Russian criminal, a poisonous snake, a quiet car, a Momomon-themed car, an empty lounge car, toilet humor, Thomas the Tank Engine stickers, and cute killer nicknames like Ladybug, twins Tangerine and Lemon, The Prince, Kimura, The Wolf, The Hornet, and White Death, most announced with comic book stylized captions.
While there is plenty of eye candy to enjoy, much of it surrounds the goofy, self-deprecating Brad Pitt, most recently seen traipsing around a jungle with Sandra Bulloch (also heard and briefly seen as Pitt’s character’s handler) and Channing Tatum in The Lost City. That appearance was an extended cameo, and there may be some tit-for-tat in Bullet Train. In fact, don’t wink too much as there are a few stunt cameos afoot.
Pitt takes stellar billing, and he glides adequately through his role as a burnt-out operative full of comic spirituality topped off by a bucket hat. The fruit-named duo (Bryan Tyree Henry and Aaron-Taylor Johnson), who have rescued the kidnapped son (Logan Lerman) as the train leaves Tokyo, quickly prove themselves dimwitted enough to allow the accompanying ransom case to be purloined by Ladybug. The Prince (Joey King, coincidentally playing The Princess in a royal action cheapie of the same name on Hulu) is a sharp-eyed protagonist easily mistaken for a bookworm. All the others put down their guard in her presence — and pay the price. Actor/martial artist Andrew Koji comes aboard as Kimura, seeking revenge for the unknown assassin who tossed his young son off a Tokyo rooftop. Zazie Beetz is another stealth assassin, while Benito A. Martinez Ocasio a.k.a. Bad Bunny, wants to pop Ladybug for the presumed massacre of his family.
Grudges ebb and flow between these social outcasts, all between the too many shootouts and battles, inventive in execution but regimentally and mirthlessly connected by the screenplay. As for the bystanders and crew, they disappear in alarming numbers. I have no idea where they went, but even Masi Oka, playing the lone train conductor, goes m.i.a. half way through. It’s apparently explained away in some dialogue, but unconvincingly so.
As if the film hadn’t already had a very bumpy ride as it hits the supposedly final stop, some of the criminal remnants decide to hotwire the train and drive it into a head-on collision and town-demolishing postscript, although no one seems to be injured and all the nearby homes appear to be vacant. A ridiculous end to a ridiculous film.
Sure, it looks great under its $90-million techie and neon veneer, but style only goes so far in the case of Bullet Train. It can’t make up for all the other problems, especially the leaky script, self-destructing humor, and bland visual effects. One for the crash-and-burn pile.
Elias Savada is a movie copyright researcher, critic, craft beer geek, and avid genealogist based in Bethesda, Maryland. He helps program the Spooky Movie International Movie Film Festival, and previously reviewed for Film Threat and Nitrate Online. He is an executive producer of the horror film German Angst and the documentary Nuts! He co-authored, with David J. Skal, Dark Carnival: the Secret World of Tod Browning (a revised edition will be published by Centipede Press).
Read also: