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List Price: $14.98 | | Label: Lions Gate
Salesrank: 38549
Released: September 21, 1999 |
| Our Price: $59.94 |
| Used Price: $21.93 |
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MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
With good production values and a load of suspense, Atomic Train delivers the goods--ahead of schedule. A rich bureaucrat with a Porsche, a goatee, and a defective sense of morality places a defective Russian nuclear warhead aboard a defective American train for cheap disposal, but the engine loses its brakes and hurls out of control toward Denver. Will it explode? Will it wipe out half the city? Will the thoughts and prayers of the President--played by Edward Herrmann, in his best Chrysler-salesman mode--do any good? Will Rob Lowe, the major hero of this epic, ever be able to save his career?
Atomic Train hauls along every disaster-flick formula you can think of: an estranged couple bonding again during a time of crisis (you begin to miss the hysterical Harvey Fierstein character of Independence Day); urban rioting and mayhem; government officials wearing headsets and breathlessly watching video monitors; trigger-happy military men; high-speed stunts; escapes by helicopter; clean-up crews in white spacesuits; many scenes of families being reunited after subplot cliffhangers, to major-key crescendos on the soundtrack. The only typical element missing is a dog saved from a fire at the last minute. But, you have to admit, what Atomic Train does it does with pizzazz.
Everyone's a hero in this movie and almost everyone faces great danger, including Esai Morales, an estranged husband and father; Kristin Davis, the ex-wife with child he's competing with Lowe for; and Zack Ward, the assistant train engineer. It's interesting to see what Ward looks like and what he's doing so many years after playing the yellow-eyed bully in A Christmas Story (hint: a strikingly handsome decent actor). That's one of the many guilty pleasures of this film, with its post-Armageddon tone of overly heroic but ultimately disposable machismo. And explosions. Lots of explosions. --Robert Burns Neveldine
Atomic Train Reviews:
How Many Directors Does It Take to Mess Up a Train Movie? 
2005-06-27 - I was surprised to see Rob Lowe in this movie. Of course, Rob is one of the few good things in this movie that is yet another entry into the disaster genre. Unfortunately, there are so many problems with this movie's plot that the producer should have fired the technical advisor or the director that failed to listen to him.
There is this train traveling through the Rocky Mountains with a Russian nuclear missile secreted on board. In addition to the nuclear missile are all kinds of hazardous waste, including metallic sodium, which essentially explodes on contact with water. So, the train is rolling down hill for hundreds of miles into Denver with an air line on the train fails. Wait. That can not be right.
Let us check the facts. Once you get just a little way west of Denver, you are on the other side of the Front Range and the slope goes down again. Then how did the train go rolling for hundreds of miles into Denver? I have no answer for that question. Then there is an even more interesting question, which is why the train brakes failed to work when the air hose broke. The air pressure in the hoses deactivates the brakes, not the other way around. That way train cars will stop automatically when air lines open. Then there is the caboose. Cabooses have not been used in some time, except on rare occasions. Maybe the whole train was hazardous. It certainly seemed to be a couple of centuries behind the times.
If you can avoid the problems with this film, which are numerous, you find that this movie is much ado about nothing. It is a bit more difficult getting a nuclear missile onto a train than you might think. Even Soviet nuclear weapons do not explode easily, and Soviet weapons are notorious for being unreliable; i.e., they often do not work.
I found the whole premise of this movie implausible. Now, had someone tried to dismantle the bomb to get the nuclear material, or had someone set the air to be on constantly, and put a tool box on the accelerator, and arranged for the metallic sodium to crash into a train loaded with Perrier, then there might have been a plot. Instead, I was so caught up in the errors that I really had a hard time gaining any sympathy for any of the characters and what happened to them. I found it difficult to feel badly for the people who died, because at least they did not have to be there for the end of this turkey.
Atomic Train changed my life! 
2005-04-04 - My dad once told me, "son, a movie isn't a movie if someone doesn't get injured and/or killed by an owl." Last month I realized how incredibly true that is. I also realized my dad never said that.
The film industry was done a freaking favor when director (genius) David jackson took over the reigns on this thoroughbread of a movie. Certain words come to mind after watching a film of this calliber. Most of these words I cannot type, for children may view this, but here are a few: "what?" "huh?" and "why!?"
After watching Atomic Train my best friend jumped out of the window of our hotel after saying only, "I have seen all there is to see!" He was right. Not a day goes by that I kick myself for not jumping out of that window as well.
But in all seriousness that owl was David Bowie from The Labirynth right?
Atomic Train
2005-03-12 - Seeing the movie on the SCIFI channel, I thought it was an awsome movie, I'm going to see if I can get it for my birthday coming up.
wow 
2005-02-12 - Watching this movie, was like....well, it was like watching a train wreck. I couldnt stop watching it despite how painfully bad the whole movie was. You can read some of the other reviews for some of the endless flaws in the plot line. Anyways, my point is this: don't buy this movie. You'll just end up wasting two hours of your life.
Might be OK movie if you're not into trains
2004-10-25 - See other reviews for plot info, I won't repeat it. Apparently the makers of this movie didn't know anything about geography or railroads.
300 Miles west of Denver is the other side of the mountains. The train would have to go uphill 150 miles or so, before it could even begin to coast down.
The setting is supposedly modern, yet the train contained cars that have not been in service since the 80s, including a caboose!? The box car containing the "bomb" was modified with a roof walk and side bars so the actors could climb on it.
One of the major malfunctions of the train was a broken air line so the train couldn't stop. In reality when the line breaks and looses the air, the brakes come on automatically.
The throttle of the locomotive got stuck on. No problem, all the engineer had to do was take his foot off the "dead man" pedal, and the train would stop (In the "Silver Streak" the bad guy used a tool box to hold it down.) After that, even though the engineer had no control of the train, he remained in the engineer's seat instead of trying to help out.
The hero tried to short out the "booster" in order to slow it down, but earlier the engineer had said the dynamics wouldn't stop it. Even if this would have worked, it would have been much easier just to disconnect the wires (called MU cables) that hook the two locomotives together.
And the worst thing of all. Each car has its own manual brake. Can you imagine five trainmen and a man who investigates train wrecks not knowing that. Several shots that show the people trying to stop the train also show the brake wheel in clear view. "Hey stupid, turn the wheel behind you!"
These things and others (like people in panic trying to steal an auto in one scene, yet 10 seconds later the owners leave the vehicle to help someone but no one steals it?) ruin any plot credibility of the rest of the show.
As my spouse said, "If that movie is so bad why are you watching it?" It was a good question and as such I turned it off and don't know or care how it ended.
