- Directed by Jeffrey Porter
- Written by Benjamin Carr and Charles Kephart
- Starring
- Donnie Biggs
- Tanya Garrett
- Cristian Irimia
- Paul Keith
- Jason Dohring
- Produced by Kirk Edward Hansen and Vlad Paunescu
- Executive produced by Donald Kushner and Peter Locke (and Charles Band, uncredited)
I can claim some expertise in the juvenile-oriented direct-to-video fare produced in Romania through the late ’90s (and just into the 21st century) by any combination of Full Moon Studios, PulsePounders!, Kushner-Locke, Inc., Castel Film, and CanaRom Productions. So sit up and take notice when I say that Train Quest is the most banal, paint-by-numbers production to come out of the combined efforts of those usual suspects.
That’s not to say that it’s the worst; I think Shapeshifter (1999) still has to bear that label. But Train Quest is what would result from a computer methodically analyzing the storytelling and production trends from that whole catalog of films and distilling the lowest common denominator of overused plot mechanics and production-by-convenience.
No, all the cool kids are wearing them this season. Really.
And it doesn’t help any that the whole story revolves around model train enthusiasm. If I were to pick one hobby which has so far outlived its brief historical niche that most people don’t realize anyone still engages in it, model trains would have to be my pick. So far is that hobby from the consciousness of young viewers, the putative audience for this story, and so ill does this movie serve to whip up any enthusiasm for model trains that it looks like the completed feature was allowed to slip through the cracks of distribution until Tango Entertainment and Hollywood Entertainment licensed it along with a dozen of its cohort productions for cheapo dollar-store distribution.
The central point of the action here is Dalby’s Model Trains, a small shop on a (vaguely Romanian) quiet street where teen model enthusiast August (Donnie Biggs) works mostly so he can be around his beloved trains. His best friend, Billy (Tyler Hoechlin of 7th Heaven), is a few years younger than he is, but Augie puts up with him because Billy’s older sister Ellen (Tanya Garrett) is a total hottie. Mr. Dalby (Cristian Irimia), the bearded and vaguely Romanian store owner, evinces some paternalism over Augie, but as we shall soon see, Mr. and Mrs. Dalby have ulterior motives.
It’s Augie’s fifteenth birthday, and Billy leverages that into getting Ellen to agree to go out with Augie to the movies. (The first proof that all this takes place in a parallel universe unlike our own: Ellen doesn’t recoil from the Stench Of Geek around August, instead thinking that his obsession with model trains and the pedantic tendency to lecture on their mechanics is kinda cute. The second proof: Retro Puppet Master is the movie they decide to go see in the theater.)
“On second thought, I would rather see your collection of D&D miniatures.”
Mr. Dalby also has a present for Augie as well, which involves finally inviting him into the mysterious locked room at the back of the shop. There, Mr. and Mrs. Dalby have a gargantuan model railroad landscape, and Mr. Dalby shows Augie a special train made by a master trainbuilder named Davros, along with a set of tiny passengers. Dalby places the passengers in the train and station, and Augie is almost ready to throw the switch on the train when his wristwatch reminds him of is date with Ellen.
After the movie, though, Augie brings Ellen back to the shop to show her the train in the back room (because wholesale geekery has worked well for him so far, so why stop now?). She meaningfully places her hand on his as he throws the power switch, there are animated electric bolts around their hand… and they wake up on the train, miniaturized to the scale of the model passengers. Said passengers are alive, and fairly feisty.
“First the model Romania — then the real Romania — then the world!!”
Meanwhile, one of the figures, Joseph (Jason Dohring), has leapt into the real world. He’s all plasticky, as are all of the animate passengers; that certainly helps with the makeup appliance budget, since seams and creases can be excused as intentional. But from ominous talk between him and Mr. and Mrs. Dalby, the entire overly-complicated magical scheme is revealed. (That’s Benjamin Carr’s name up there as a screenwriter; of course there’s an overly-complicated magical scheme!) The train, obviously, is magical. And maybe the track too. Definitely the figurines of the passengers. When a real person is zapped into the model, his corresponding figurine is zapped out. (No corresponding figurine for Ellen; Mr. Dalby hadn’t planned on her.) As the train goes around and around the track, Augie gets more and more plasticky, while Joseph gets more and more human. And if the train makes a full 365 circuits of the track and has Augie on board, the transformation will be permanent; Augie will be a little plastic person running around the model landscape, and Joseph will have become a real human, just like Mr. and Mrs. Dalby, earlier refugees from the model train into our world.
“What? It’s just a brow lift, chin implant, cheek implants, lip filler, some nose work, and a little bit of Botox. The standard Hollywood package.”
If the arbitrary magic at work is the sure hallmark of Benjamin Carr, then I’m pretty sure I can guess Charles Kephart’s contribution to the script. Several times throughout the movie, the main sympathetic characters – Augie, Ellen, and even Billy — turn toward the (suddenly handheld) camera and break the fourth wall for several minutes. They talk about why they did what they just did, how they feel about the other characters, and other thought-balloonish stuff which really contributes nothing to the story except filler. On the other hand, the movie’s such a conceptual wash that, surprisingly, these added scenes shot and presented in a completely different style don’t do much to damage the movie as a whole.
So Augie and Ellen escape the train and run around the model landscape, Billy (along with the cops and, I’m sure, some unseen parents) tries to find out what happened to his best friend and his big sister, and the arbitrary deadline looms closer and closer. And you just can’t bring yourself to care. As an experiment, I watched this movie with four children (my own), ranging in age from four to thirteen. Train Quest did nothing for any of the mini-demographics presented; each opined that the movie was an uneasy balance of “boring” and “weird.”
And now, the only halfway-worthwhile element of the movie: the cute blonde! Wooo!
I can’t even recommend this movie to you if you are in fact one of the seven remaining model train enthusiasts in the continental United States . After watching this plodding example of the sausage cranked out by the usual suspects in these Canarom direct-to-video products, you would most likely find yourself exclaiming, “I never realized my hobby was so lame.”
Some Notable Totables:
- body count: 3
- breasts: 0
- explosions: 0
- ominous thunderstorms: 0
- actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 0
Ahem…pardon me, but your ignorance is showing. I shall remain kind and not use the word “stupidity”. Apparently, you chose to say “if you are in fact one of the seven remaining model train enthusiasts in the continental United States”, without benefit of the slightest bit of research to back up this statement.
You may not like the movie (I have never seen it), but if your opinion is as true as the above statement, it must be a GREAT movie! There are, in fact, millions of model train enthusiasts throughout the United States, and there are hundreds of model train shows held all over the country, and attended by thousands of people.
Many, many publications dedicated to the subject are in print, as well as a staggering quantity of model train stores and online businesses (Walthers.com, just to mention one).
Your point can be made quite satisfactorily without grossly understating the facts and negatively undermining a hobby shared by millions of people.
Gosh, thanks for not using the word “stupidity.” (And yet you did! How sly of you!)
It’s called “ribbing.” Get used to it. Every specialized interest gets it, even in polite company, unless they’re a federally protected class — comic book geeks (I’m one), Mormons (I’m also one), etc. Republicans do it to Democrats, Democrats do it to Republicans, and both do it to Greens and Libertarians. It sometimes staggers me that the internet has been in common use for over a decade, and yet people are still being shocked — shocked! — to find that there are things written on it that offend them! (Just imagine if Trekkies were as thin-skinned as you are — it would be the Rodney King Riots with Spock ears!) And while my swipes at the scarcity of model train enthusiasts were exaggerated for comedic effect, if the asides in my review can “undermine” this hobby, then it’s almost as weak as I portrayed it to be, isn’t it?
But hey, feel free to ignore my review and conclude that, since I offended you, the movie must be great. In fact, seek it out! You deserve it!
I don’t think that trains will ever be a “hobby which has so far outlived its brief historical niche that most people don’t realize anyone still engages in it.” I’ve noticed that there’s a powerful attraction to trains among a certain breed of geek, autistic, or systematizing intellectual. It must be all the complex interconnected parts. It’s not for me, but I can easily imagine a train aspie seeing the box for this movie on the shelf at the dollar store, perking up at the word “Train” in the title, discovering that it’s also a genre film, and grinning as they carry it to the cashier.
But then, from the previous two comments in this comments section, it sounds like you already knew about train fandom, or do now. :-)