When I tell you, reader, that the new film Stop! That! Train! plays exactly like an extended, slightly better-than-average Acting Challenge on a slightly better-than-average season of RuPaul’s Drag Race, some among you will nod sagely, and hie your butts to the theater in boisterous gaggles of girls, gays and theys. (A not-insignificant subset of you may also stop along the way to buy a box of cheap-ass blush wine so you can remove the bag and smuggle it into the theater, and I can’t stop you, that’s your own business.) Some among you will take that same report under advisement, secure in the knowledge that you’ll be fine waiting to stream it in the comfort of your own homes, where you’ve stashed enough champagne … to fill da Nile! Some among you — let’s face it, the younger, hotter, more evolved crowd that prefers your humor to grow organically out of things like characterization, cultural insight and dry wit — will grimace, and resolve to avoid it at all costs.

But the vast majority of you haven’t watched enough Drag Race to internalize its every formulaic tic, and thus won’t be able to glean any useful information from the comparison, so let me break it down for you.

Stop! That! Train! parodies ’70s disaster movies in exactly the way the 1980 film Airplane! did, which is to say: By submitting it to a ceaseless fusillade of broad, sweaty and very dumb jokes, by busting out a parade of game celebrity cameos and by deploying a just-shy-of-legally-actionable number of precisely the same gags.

The only salient difference turns out to be one of sensibility. Where Airplane!‘s humor chiefly arose from encasing its jokes in a thick layer of deadpan solemnity (think Leslie Nielsen’s Dr. “And don’t call me Shirley” Rumack), Stop! That! Train!‘s entire schtick is one of arch, winking camp (think Stephen Stucker’s Johnny, the hilariously queeny control-room worker who served as resident court jester/chaos gremlin).

So think of it as Airplane! with nothing but the Johnny jokes. In a word: drag.

Which only makes sense, as the film’s key roles are filled with queens from RuPaul’s Drag Race and those who love them. There’s Jujubee and Ginger Minj as DeeDee and Tess, two not-so-fresh-faced “train hostesses” whose low-rent rail service folds, causing them to bluff their way into jobs on a Glamazonian Express luxury bullet train.

They receive a frosty reception from the train’s trio of first-class hostesses, Amber (Brooke Lynn Hytes), Allie (Marcia Marcia Marcia, credited here as Marty Lauter) and the ridiculously spelled Ayshleiygh (Symone). Keep an eye out for Latrice Royale, Monét X Change and Angeria Paris VanMicheals while you’re at it.

If you’re finding yourself concerned that you’re eight paragraphs into this review and still don’t know what the movie’s actually about, just know that you, cookie, are not the target demographic for this particular project. But here goes: A high-speed train malfunctions on a cross-country journey and barrels into a series of mishaps involving an escaped scorpion, a haunted tunnel and a climatological event known as a “Stormaganza” while a lot of very funny people stand around making stupid, usually pun-adjacent jokes. Also: RuPaul sports a Deborah Vance wig to play U.S. President Judy Gagwell (see above, in re: pun-adjacency) and does some really stellar face-acting.

Ginger Minj and Jujubee.

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Also also: the great Rachel Bloom plays Donna, the only government official to understand the peril facing the train’s passengers and crew, whose dire warnings fall on the cartoonishly boorish, misogynist ears of her co-workers. (Her boss, played by Evan Mulrooney, delivers a masterclass in the kind of prideful, bullying willfulness currently stalking the halls of power; it’s the closest thing this defiantly silly little flick comes to a political statement.)

The whole thing’s over and done with in a brisk 90-minute trot, and you’ll have a very good time. Oh sure, you might find yourself squinting at the special effects, such as they are. Not because they evince the now-familiar muddiness of bad CGI, but because they instead bear the disquietingly bright, clean, sharp lines of AI slop. (Director Adam Shankman felt compelled to release a statement attempting to clarify the film’s status, which reads in part: “There are a sum total of ZERO shots conceived by AI in the movie.” [Emphasis mine, because he’d apparently already told Xtra Magazine that some AI was used, in combination with CGI.]) But in the end, the jankiness of the film’s effects only feed into the hey-queens-let’s-put-on-a-show vibe, not distract from it.

You may also find yourself wishing, as you watch drag queens trading barbs, flaring their nostrils and mime-slapping the bejeezus out of one another, that the barbs in question were better, meaner, fiercer. They’re mildly cutting when they could and should be lacerating, and they feel like place-holders. But the script’s downright neutronic joke-density ensures that you won’t be able to linger over such quibbles; so many more jokes are barrelling toward you that by the time the credits roll (do I need to tell you there’s a gag reel? Of course there’s a gag reel) the comedic signal to noise ratio will prove satisfying.

And hey, it’s Pride. You’re already out and about; why not top off your brief interlude with these cinematic queens by taking in a real drag show where IRL performers are waiting, tucked and plucked and working hard, sweating through their foundation to entertain you? Between numbers you can nip off to the bar and debate with your friends which one of the film’s dumb jokes was the absolute dumbest.

Trust me, you’ll be there a while.

I’m doing yoga at Palisades Park in Santa Monica with a friend, when a tall, thin guy with long hair and carrying a guitar approaches. He has that aging rock-star look, which I find … hot.

He says, “Hey, y’all, can anyone join your yoga class?”

Southern drawl? Also, hot. “Oh, it’s not a class,” I say. “Can anyone get a song on your guitar?”

He hoists the guitar and launches into a beautiful ballade. I feel the late afternoon sun on my arms, smell the ocean breeze. I’m reminded why I love Santa Monica, where I moved to from New York after my divorce, looking for a fresh start, and where I’ve remained single ever since.

After the song, the stranger, Clayton, tells us that he moved to L.A. from Georgia in his 20s. He says he got “the biggest signin’ deal of any first-time recording artist.” Now he’s working on the score for a movie with the “biggest producer attached.”

Is this true? I want it to be true. It’s hard to meet a straight guy over the age of 45 who’s successful, single … and has hair. We exchange numbers, but I can’t tell if he’s interested in me romantically. I’ve been single for so long, it’s hard to feel appealing. As a child, I knew I was special, and I knew why: because my mother told me.

But I don’t live with a praiseful parent or a supportive spouse, no. And I work at home; no office mates say, “Cute shoes!” Or “What healthy lunch choices.” I live with a praise deficit, in a vast compliment desert.

The next day Clayton calls and asks me out on a date. Over coffee, he says, “I can write an entire movie script in one week. My agent has never read such good scripts.” Later that week, over drinks, he says, “I got into the Atlanta Boys Choir on my first try.” As if it took everyone else multiple tries.

He picks me up from Los Angeles International Airport — an act of chivalry that deserves knighthood. He has his guitar in the car. Inching home on Lincoln Boulevard, he plays a song he’s composing while steering with one knee. “This song is gonna to be a huge hit,” he says.

Clayton is cool and kind and a big braggart. When I mention that my stomach is bothering me, he says, “I’m gonna cook you the best dinner you’ve ever eaten!”

This brag worries me. I worked as a food critic in New York City. There’s no way Clayton’s very seared salmon with watermelon radish can top a Jean-Georges chocolate mousse.

I finally snap: “Clayton! No one talks this way. You don’t hear me saying, I don’t know, ‘I scored so high on those standardized tests in high school, my score went right off the chart. They couldn’t even keep my score on the chart, that’s how high I scored.’ ”

And then I stop. I had totally forgotten about my excellent test scores. They used to give me a lot of confidence, but I never talk about standardized test scores now because I’m an adult. But since I don’t, they have disappeared from my story of myself. I am more versed in my deficits than my strengths these days.

Clayton is on to something. That night, I call my yoga friend. “We need to start bragging like Clayton,” I say. “But also, keep our friends.”

We hatch a plan: We will start a weekly bragging practice. It will be like a meditation practice but more aggressive. Bragging is not like some tepid self-affirmation; it’s competitive. It’s like my mother.

We decide to begin that Saturday. We have plans to work in the morning, walk to the Korean spa for a scrub, then go to a friend’s improv show where Clayton will join us. As we’re walking to the spa, my bragging buddy is supposed to start. I see her struggling. “Uh. I am really good at … uh, walking down the street?” she says.

“You do have a nice walk,” I say. “And me? I’m really good at, um … It’s so cool how I’m always carrying a cup of coffee around everywhere I go. Like I’m just so comfortable here … in the crosswalk … drinking coffee?”

Bragging is not easy. After a lifetime of being pleasant, polite and self-effacing, trying to brag is like taking a final you haven’t studied for, given in a foreign language.

We arrive at the spa late, but they charge us for the whole hour anyway. After the scrub, I realize I left my phone at home and can’t call Clayton with the improv’s address. I feel bad about all this, but I have made a commitment to brag, so I have to see how these snafus reflect positively on me.

Then I do see it. “You know, I pack a lot in one day,” I say. This is true, but without the bragging practice, I would not have seen it.

My friend and I stick with our bragging practice for six months, longer than the relationship with Clayton lasts. But the experience left a positive impact.

Later, I have plans to travel back to New York City, and my lodging falls through. A friend says, “You have nowhere to stay. You should probably cancel your trip.”

This seems like reasonable advice, but after all that bragging, it sounds off. Is he suggesting that even though I lived in New York for 20 years, I don’t have any friends there I can crash with? I say, “A lot of people want me to stay with them.”

This brag becomes true. I wind up splitting my time between my friend Ben’s on the Lower East Side and Katie’s on the Upper West. As I’m dragging my suitcase down the subway stairs at midnight to switch apartments, I think, “This was a stupid plan.”

But then I hear a Southern drawl in my head. I look around the empty station and say, “I am good at dating, because I learn something valuable from everyone I meet.”

I track down Clayton this spring to make sure he’s OK with being written about. He’s back in Georgia, with “a great new band,” he tells me. About the story, he says, “Go ahead. If you got it, flaunt it.”

“Thanks,” I say. “But my story is about you, um, kind of being a big braggart.”

He pauses and then tells me that when he was young, he had a chance to play guitar with an older, impressive musician. He denigrated his own skills. The older man stopped him, saying that how you talk about yourself becomes your reality. Clayton has been making an effort to speak positively about himself ever since.

It’s easy to think guys in L.A. are egotistical or narcissistic. But this was a reminder that men struggle with these issues too. We’re all out here doing our best, trying to find someone to love.

The author is an author, journalist and budding stand-up comedian in Santa Monica. She shared a version of this essay at the L.A. Affairs Live storytelling event in April. Find her on Instagram at @wendypariscomedy.

L.A. Affairs chronicles the search for romantic love in all its glorious expressions in the L.A. area, and we want to hear your true story. We pay $400 for a published essay. Email LAAffairs@latimes.com. You can find submission guidelines here. You can find past columns here.

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