ThomasNATION Movie Reviews - Bullet Train

August 20, 2022

Okay, hear me out.

Yes, I said back in my inside look to the new TN that I would be stopping reviews of non-Thomas movies like Trolls, Fantastic Beasts and Captain Underpants. Not only because they completely diverged from the Thomas theme of this blog, but also because those old reviews were completely terrible. Hell, at first I wasn't even planning on reviewing or even seeing this movie. But then something weird happened where the film became a bit of a trend in the fandom for one reason: this movie is loaded with Thomas references to the point where it's debatably integral to the plot. So despite the flimsy reason to both break my promise and watch the movie, I decided to go in and see this movie. So, with all that said, does David Leitch still have that flare for action like he did with John Wick, or did I end up seeing this movie for nothing? Let's begin.

The film features Brad Pitt as Ladybug, a down-on-his-luck assassin who gets involved with a job that sends him to Tokyo and puts him on the titular bullet train. But he soon finds himself face-to-face with several adversaries all with one common goal.
Upon seeing the trailer before films like The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, Jurassic World: Dominion or even Morbius, I didn't think much of it. It just looked like your standard action movie with the same plot you'd expect from a film like this. And at first, that seemed like what it was gonna be.  One thing I have to criticise this movie for is that it doesn't get off to a good start. When we meet the stars of the show, the story seems rather predictable and generic, and it almost doesn't know who to focus on. That, and the plot starts off on a generic note and doesn't ever pick up from there. Hell, there are even long stretches of the film where the main character, Ladybug, doesn't even appear. That's not to say these characters are downright awful. In fact, they're all pretty entertaining, especially with Tangerine and Lemon, played respectively by Aaron Taylor-Johnson and the highly underrated Brian Tyree Henry, with how they play really well off of each other. Another problem I have is that despite all the interesting and fleshed out characters in the film, Ladybug isn't one of them. He's not hateable, and Brad Pitt's doing a good job, he's just written kinda one-dimensionally as a bland unlucky curmudgeon character.
Other than that, that's really all the problems I have. As for the positives, there are two main points I wanna go over. The first being its visual style. In a way, it reminded me a lot of the visual style of The Suicide Squad, but in a good way. This also helps elevate the action sequences really pop out, with the outcomes often becoming unpredictable where it's unsure who will make it out alive. The only drawback here is that some of the editing is a little choppy. The action scenes and the visuals are edited great, but there are a few scenes where it cuts to previous footage for no good reason, which was kinda weird.
The second point here is the comedy. While not every joke lands, I'd gladly call this a pretty funny movie. A lot of the humor comes from the characters' interactions, and like I said before, the cast plays off each other really well. It also makes use of some pretty unexpected cameos, which I won't dare spoil, but each one is funnier than the last. But then you have the main reason why I'm doing this review and breaking the promise I made back in 2020: the Thomas references. At first, I was a bit nervous that they would become overbearing and distract from the plot of the film. But thankfully, they didn't, since writer Zak Olkewicz found a decent balance of when to play the 'Thomas reference' card and when not to, and somehow even made it integral to the plot and the character of Lemon, since it's established that he learned about how to understand people through Thomas.
So overall, I'd call Bullet Train a pretty fun movie. Is it the most original, thought-provoking and funniest movie of the year? No, but at the same time, it doesn't need to be. All it had to be was a fun ride, and not only was it that, but it managed to exceed my expectations with tremendous visuals and action, great comedy and solid acting, even in spite of its generic plot and weak protagonist. If you're curious to check this out, or if you wanna see the Thomas references in action, then I highly recommend it. My one suggestion is that you have to be over the age of 15 to watch it, since this is an R-rated movie with plenty of cursing, a little amount of sex and a ton of violent and at times gory action. I expected nothing going in, but I'm able to say that I’m glad I checked it out, so I'm gonna give this a 3.5/5. Okay, now I'm done with this type of movie review, I promise.

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