I sometimes wonder what actors think when they watch the result of their last project. and the movie not only is a disaster movie but a disaster. Are they just happy they got payed and can move on to the next, not at all concerned with their own artistic reputation? Atomic train is a disaster movie and even more a disaster of a movie, but I guess that's what you got not only Rob Lowe for, but all the people responsible for this rubbish. It's like much of the cargo on the train, a total waste, but someone's got to do it, as long as it pays the bills. It's a pity about Lowe, he's doing an alright job, but I had better hopes after watching him doing the best ever JFK impression in Killing Kennedy (2013), though Atomic Train is from 1999. He's not at all a bad actor, and that also goes for many in the cast here. But reading the script, doing some research, they should have stayed away and found another project. A film plot more full of logical flaws, characters with no common sense and total non realism, is hard to find, if not impossible.

OR, Murphy's Law meets Too Many Cooks OK, here's how the story writing conference went for this film: Right! We're here to discuss ideas for a train disaster film. Any ideas? Freight train instead of passenger train with dangerous chemicals. Like it. Anything else? A nuclear weapon instead of chemicals. Hmm. How about nuclear weapon AND chemicals? Much better. Shoddy maintenance takes out the brakes and train careers toward city. Good. Any cities with 20 miles of track heading downhill into the centre? Tracey, check into that will you. Anything else? Chasing train that tries to stop the train but fails. Yes! Chasing train causes train to keep going when it could have stopped. Yes! Yes! And so on, and on, and on.After about a month the conference finishes and EVERYTHING is in the film, except the kitchen sink. Anything anyone could think about got included in this film. Doctors, police, firemen, military, heroes, disasters, fires, explosions, big trains with massive inertia, annoying kids (are kids always annoying?), useless women, helicopters, guns, lots of aimless running around.Too many cooks involved in this film.Then they had the script writing conference where they had to stitch all ideas together into a plot: Smuggle the nuclear weapon on board the train to save money. I'm sure that happens every day. Shoddy maintenance that nobody notices takes out the train's brakes. Daily occurrence in my neck of the woods. Drop the hero onto the train using a helicopter. Everybody does that in film these days, just look at James Bond. (That one has to go OK.) People fall over at the worst times and damage their legs. Happens to me every time I take the subway. Have the coupling on the chasing train fail, just because. Those things never work. Have something go right, like stopping the train, and then screw it up, like the chasing train suddenly hitting it with an almighty thwack that doesn't derail anything. Train derailments never happen in real life, no matter what hits the train. Derail the train. Nope, can't do that in case the nuclear weapon explodes. Hah! Fooled you. Just when you thought something was going to go right.And so it went. If anything could go wrong in this film it did: water meets sodium (boom), dangerous chemicals go on fire for no good reason, car accidents, bike accidents, helicopter accidents, mobile phones suddenly don't work, cars run out of petrol, nobody remembers to take a gun but everyone has a torch, accident blocks only road out of town.There's at least 3 films in this one presentation: train disaster movie, dangerous chemical spill disaster movie, massive explosion disaster movie. Thankfully, the film moves from one film to the next linearly so we're not troubled with having to keep track of who's in which movie. But if does get very exhausting after a while, just from the sheer onslaught of one disaster after another.However, there are a few redeeming moments. There's an explosion sequence that I thought was very well done for such a low budget film. And there's a couple of times where the whiny kids almost get it. (Sadly they survived, but I did get my hopes up for a second.) And there's a couple of black men who get to be heroes, instead of the usual chisel-jawed white men. (Go back to disaster movies of the 1970's and 1980's and try to spot a non-white hero.) Overall, there's just too much thrown into this film. If only they'd taken one idea and made a 90 minute movie, then I'd have had a much better experience watching it. And then they could have made the other two films at a later date.As it is, stock up on the drinks and chips and hunker down for a LONG disaster unfolding before your quickly tiring eyes.

The whole movie is a nuclear bomb itself. It's three hours long! And it felt like three whole long days. This movie has a good concept, but a horrible delivery. There are way too many plot holes in the movie. It is so boring. The characters are all flat and one dimensional. While the lead actors are attractive, none of them are very talented. Kristin Davis, who is usually pretty good, is terrible here. It's not really her fault though, because her role was so unglamorous. Most of the other actors are also awful. Only Rob Lowe's performance comes close to being adequate.One more thing, would you put a nuclear bomb on a train?!

Somebody really forgot the basics of screen writing with this dog of a movie. Why oh why did Hollywood torment us with this crap?SPOILER ALERT! S P O I L E R S !!! SPOILER ALERT! S P O I L E R S !!!SPOILER ALERT! S P O I L E R S !!!I did like the shootout with the psycho militia MFs, but then again, that was the only, the ONLY believable part about this silly film.AND WHY OH WHY DID THE NICE BLACK MAN END UP BEING THE CRISPY SACRIFICE? The black guy really does get blown up or killed in EVERY FILM--and this film is just full of stereotypes and clichés! And WHY OH WHY did the stupid redneck yahoos end up being the idiots with the water bucket? And why oh why did nothing in this film make sense, including the stupid highway being blocked off? It's amateur night for sure, folks. Don't waste your time watching this dog. You should only watch this film if you like being bored out of your skull. Wait until the last bit of the movie when the bomb blows up if you like watching people flying in the air along with the glass and flames, but otherwise don't bother watching this--not even on cable!