Bullet Train Down (2022)

On its maiden run, the world's fastest bullet train is rigged with a bomb that will explode if it dips below 200 mph.

Here's a B-Movie riding the blockbuster Bullet Train title wave, with some Olympus Down name inspiration maybe, and the Speed plot on train, from the studio that's famous for making similar sub-par action movies piggybacking on big names.

It has a surprisingly good intro - props on the strangle scene and everyone involved there, but after that...

The rest of the movie's filmed on a train - or what's meant to look like a train - though it seems as overly CGI from the outside as it looks like a fake box-like interior from within.

We have cabins with veiled windows - clearly just a room more so than a train - where occasionally they switch the camera to a scenery shot and suddenly the windows are framed by curtains instead of shutters.

We have action scenes where the camera shakes and people scream to bring in a false sense of intensity, and we have CGI explosions, and real and fake shots mixed together, and a miniature train sliding along the track at one point...

They have some beautiful panorama sights of cities initially, but on-location the effects budget seems restricted, prop budget restricted, cast restricted, thus the sense of immersion unfortunately restricted too.

Overall it's just not that good.

They did manage a pretty good cast though.

The main character, boss and villains in particular aren't bad. The FBI guy has a bit too much of a slur though and doesn't really command the respect he's meant to, and the passengers seem of little importance.

They're a varied bunch, and they're not bad, but they get little spotlight, and in the end you're not sure they really mattered at all.

For all the bad and subpar scripting though it actually did keep me engaged all the way, so I shan't criticize it unnecessarily. Just know that... it's NOT like Bullet Train.

Nor like Speed or Olympus Down.

It's okay. It gets no crown.

 rated 2/5: decent