A great train robbery, but perpetrated by children. Sounds fun, and there’s nothing, inherently, with being derivative. But this isn’t much of a movie, and it’s quite lacking its predecessor’s spark or freshness or urgency. There’s some really flaccid staging and framing, especially the actual robbery part on the curve of the funicular line there. One of these days someone is going to have to invent a more decisive way to pan the camera.
The central gimmick appears to have exhausted the producers’ imaginations, but there are still some interesting things, going on at the margins. They shot the film on what looks like a lovely day. There’s a black kid and a girl in this gang. They don’t appear to be at all symbolical, or tokenistic, or anything. They do appear to be having fun. The gang’s hide-out looks really cool! There’s something kind of stirring about seeing these kids hopping on their horses and riding so capably around on them. Inept moderns like me would say something like that. Also, that one guy really wipes out! Then, after that, so does that other guy.