Trainwreck: Storm Area 51 (2025) Review – The power of a meme
The internet is a weird place. It's impossible to predict what the next trend will be or when it will end. But there are many times that a silly meme can become much more. Trainwreck: Storm Area 51 delves into one such instance and the repercussions of a simple Facebook joke.
One day, Matty Roberts, a normal young man, decided to kill boredom the best way he could: by making a meme. He created an event on his Facebook page inviting people to storm Area 51, which got a massive repercussion he could've never expected. After a few days, thousands of people had confirmed their participation, and influencers and news outlets were talking about it.
This event is a perfect example of the internet's power. Today, a simple tweet, meme, video, or anything can become tomorrow's biggest headline. And to convey that, Trainwreck: Storm Area 51 brings people from all walks of life involved in the story. They show the viewpoint of cops, the military, influencers, the meme's creator, journalists, and more.
The Netflix documentary alternates between the interviewees a lot, making the story more dynamic. Even if it's focusing on a specific person, we still get a quick impression from at least one other participant.
Even though that's great for the pacing, it's hard not to think the documentary could've been shorter. It spends a lot of time presenting a local citizen and his struggle to stop the event, but it's the least interesting portion. Not to mention, it's even more disappointing when it goes nowhere.
The influencers also have more screentime than they should. Seeing how the internet embraced the meme and created infinite content about it is important. However, most of their participation in the documentary feels superfluous.
You can see that the production spent more on this Trainwreck, not only by the number of people participating, but also by the resources they used. Not every incident regarding the Storm Area 51 meme was recorded, so the documentary uses animation to recreate these scenes.
But the best use of the animation is displaying the 'what if' scenarios of such an event. It could've gone in many directions, from no one showing up to hundreds or thousands of people getting shot by the military. And we can only see that imagined thanks to it having animated scenes as well.
This one does justice to the trainwreck name, as no matter the scenario, it'd never have worked. However, the way it doesn't work is very surprising. This time, the organizers actually all gained something, while those who lost were the military and the government, which unnecessarily spent more money than they needed.
Still, this surprise doesn't fix the lackluster ending. In real life, nothing happened, and the people just ended up partying in front of the place. Even so, the documentary keeps building up to a big ending that never arrives.
There were many alternatives, such as focusing more on the comedy of the situation. It could've also been expressed before that the event wouldn't amount to anything huge instead.
However, the ending brings a few questions that make it more interesting. The internet is bizarre, and crazy incidents happen because of it, so there's no denying that something bad could've occurred. Seeing that's true, how do you stop a joke? It's a weird, but real debate in the world we currently live in.
Although the quality of these Traiwreck movies varies a lot and none are exceptional, it's a fun series to follow. There aren't many documentaries that focus on a diversity of incidents like it, mainly situations that have happened so recently.
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