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 Chris' Review: (Spoilers.) "Are you coming or going?" "I don't know. Both." Really that sums up how I felt about Speilberg's latest creation. I felt like I was coming, going, standing still. Really like I was being pushed around by a Hollywood bully. Speilberg has had a penchant for creating movies with a basis in reality, but his latest attempt has me feeling like he's just exercising his directorial muscles. Not to say it was bad... maybe I should start with the actors... Tom Hanks. Can this man do no wrong? Entertaining, innocent without playing stupid, with a flawless accent. Hanks plays Viktor Navorski, a foreigner trapped in a New York airport. (The real life occurrence happened in Paris) He speaks no English at the beginning and by the end can manage a rather competent conversation. His acting is so perfect that you never feel like Viktor's progression halted or backtracked... it's completely fluid and grows perfectly. Really an amazing feat. Not to mention, I never once questioned his character. I never once sat back and thought, "Ya know, Tom's doin' a really great job, up there." In other words, I believed, wholeheartedly, that he was Viktor Navorski. This should be the goal of any actor, to supercede their own persona so completely that the audience doesn't see anyone but the character. Bravo. More pathetic was Catherine Zeta Jones. In comparison, I never saw anyone on the screen but Catherine Zeta Jones. Her character, Amelia, was lost in the script. She was flat, unconvincing... nothing more than a pretty face for Tom to work around. As the low point in acting, Diego Luna (who played Enrique Cruz) was inconsistent with dropped accents and poor characterization.. it also didn't help that the side story between him and the INS agent was poorly written... but I'll get to that in a minute. In general, the acting was par. Tom Hanks offset the poor performances of a few, but he also made them so much more pronounced in working so close with them. Overall, the characters seemed a bit too static for me, not enough development, like they were all there to just make Tom look better. The story just drove me crazy. First you have this obnoxious, by-the-book, security director (Frank Dixon, played by Stanley Tucci). From the moment Viktor walks into the airport, this guy has a bug up his ass to make Viktor's life miserable or to get him in trouble just so that he didn't have to deal with him anymore. I just don't think that the character had been fully explored. I didn't get a solid reasoning for why Frank was so upset with Viktor. It just kept getting more and more unbelievable. Viktor wanted to leave, Frank wanted him to leave, Frank put rules in place saying that Viktor couldn't leave and Viktor followed them. Frank essentially told the kid that if he went in the candy store he'd get spanked... and then was upset when he obeyed for fear of punishment. I'm sorry, but for as logical as Frank's character seemed, this was one huge flaw in the plot for me. The passage of time bothered me as well. I never got a full understanding of how long Viktor was actually there. One minute he's penniless and starving, but he's had no money the entire time he's been there and in the previous scene he had been comfortable enough being in the airport that he was in his bathrobe, walking towards the bathroom. It all just seemed inconsistent. Maybe I was missing some news articles that were giving out the months or something. Was he there for a week or for a month or for a year? Even after the movie is completely over, I have no idea. Then there was the side story between Enrique and the INS agent, officer Torres (played by Zoe Saldana). The whole idea of the shy catering kart driver crushing on the officer, yeah, I had no problem with that. Most of the story I had no problem with... until we get to the big climax of their little plot where she gets an engagement ring. >From the story that I witnessed, these two had never met. Even when they saw each other in the food court, it seemed like it was for the first time... yet she accepted his proposal? Who are we kidding? She accepts his proposal even though they've never met? I don't buy that at all. What, is she that desperate? She has it all in for a guy who is so spineless as to never talk to her until he's offered her a diamond? No, it doesn't work for me. If we had seen ANY evidence that they had actually gone out and then he just used the method that they met for her proposal, that I would have believed, but we're led down this path of unrealistic romance. It just ticked me off. As if THAT love story wasn't enough, then we have Amelia Warren (Catherine Zeta Jones) and Viktor. They have this hit and miss thing going on that is quite cute. Then she decides that she's not good enough for him and takes off. Fine, I'll buy all that. Near the end of the movie (not even the very end where it should have been) then share a moment of silent understanding. The idea works for me and it's nice that the Hollywood machine didn't have her running into his arms at the end, it's nice to see some more realistic endings; but it was a rip off of Lost in Translation and it didn't work nearly as well. It felt too contrived and not fluid... as if the writers were finished with the script, saw Lost in Translation and thought that this would be a perfect way to get some closure so they shoved the round peg into the square hole. Pretty much anything that happened after Viktor got out of the terminal was just an anti-climactic mess. The entire plot centered around Viktor staying in the airport because he wanted to get an autograph to finish his father's project. The end of the movie comes with him getting that signature... but it was too late and the end of the movie had already come and gone. I was waiting in my seat and the movie just wasn't ending. It could have been hinted at without actually going all the way through the process of showing. It left the movie on such a blah note when it should have ended with this feeling of satisfaction. Maybe that's the way Speilberg wanted it. Maybe it was supposed to be anti-climactic for Victor as well, after spending so much time in the terminal. Whatever it was, it didn't work for me. Now, I've just said a lot of bad things about this movie, and honestly, I don't feel that it was Speilberg's best work, but overall I DID enjoy it. The movie had me laughing very hard in a couple of places. Some of the bits were so natural that you felt as if it were just you and your buddies goofing around in an airport. It also caused some lumps in my throat in a couple places. In retrospect, after the movie was over, I really felt manipulated... laugh, cry, laugh, cry, laugh, etc. As I said before, like a big directorial bully; I felt pushed around. Unfortunately, I can't get away from the simple fact that I was entertained and my suspension of disbelief held through the entire film. So overall I give The Terminal 6 thumbs up. Very entertaining, but flawed at every turn. I'll still be picking up the DVD, though.   Jim's Review: When embarking upon our little movie night / reviewing experiment, I honestly never thought this would happen. There are very few films these days that possess the qualities I assumed would be necessary for such a thing to occur. Sure, there are movies that are above average...Good, even. But on the whole, Hollywood generally squanders opportunities and expectations more than it has any right to. So, call me cynical, but when we set up our ratings system, I just honestly didn't think I'd ever find myself typing the words I'm about to: Ten Thumbs Up. That's no typo. Ten. Stephen Spielberg's "The Terminal", starring Tom Hanks, Stanley Tucci, and Catherine Zeta-Jones, is that rarest of cinematic beasts: A note-perfect film. I realize that's going to be a difficult position to defend, but I'm prepared to. In "The Terminal", Hanks portrays Victor Navorski, a sweet-natured tourist from the fictional Eastern-bloc country of Krakozhia. He flies into JFK International airport on a personal trip, but while in the air, a violent coup erupts in his home country...So, by the time he lands in New York, his government documents, including passport and visa, are rendered invalid due to the government that issued them having been forcibly usurped. Once he hits the tarmac, he is literally a man without a country. He cannot be admitted, or processed. He is the physical embodiment of a loophole in the system. (An aside: The character of Navorski is loosely based on a man named Merhan Karimi Nasseri, an Iranian by birth, who landed in Paris' Charles DeGaulle airport in 1977 following the overthrow of the Shah, and has lived there ever since. Now, this is the part of the review where I usually rail against a script for finding its basis in another medium - and therefore not being wholly "original" - but that's not going to happen here. The story of Victor may be INSPIRED by true events, but that is where the similarity ends. Make no mistake...This film is original, and it is a gem.) Navorski, because of his up-in-the-air (yet grounded) status, is told by stuffy, by-the-book airport security head Frank Dixon (a steely Stanley Tucci) that he must wait until a resolution can be reached concerning his situation. And he must wait at JFK...Because beyond the doors of the airport lies American soil. And without the proper documents, issued by an existing government that the United States recognizes, he is not permitted to enter. Navorski is told he must wait, so wait he does. And the trek his character makes, from discovering the truth about his country, to discovering his own hidden resourcefulness, to immersing himself in English (aided by very clever study tools), to building relationships even as he builds airport infrastructure, is deeply and wholly charming. I refuse to reveal the plot any further, except to say that every word, action, character and motivation plays so realistically, and so beautifully, that it seems to have sprung from the direct observation of a real life lived rather than a fictional one created. The picture of humanity presented by "The Terminal" is flawless...because it is flawed. Hanks, as Navorski, is exceptional. The truest praise I can heap upon his performance is that I lost him within it. Hanks' comfortable, rumpled features are as familiar now to American moviegoers as Raisinets and popcorn...But when I looked at the man on the screen, all I saw was a sweet-natured stranger in a strange land. A flesh-and-bone man overwhelmed, and in an alien environment where nothing makes any sense. My suspension of disbelief in his character was total, and I cannot recall the last time that happened at the movies...Especially with another so famous. Kudos are also due the supporting cast. The usually-intolerable Catherine Zeta-Jones turns in an uncharacteristically human, anchored performance as a harried flight attendant. Enrique Cruz, Chi McBride, and Kumar Pallana are a joy as the airport workers Victor befriends as his makeshift family. In fact, every single person in the airport, from those billed next to Hanks to any barely-there extra, contributes to the living, breathing mosaic feel of the film. The people within the Terminal are never out of place, while still managing to seem totally uncontrived and utterly natural. And as if that weren't enough, the film succeeds just as much on a technical level. It is photographed lovingly, and with a rare warmth in the eye. The sets are spot-on. The environments of controlled chaos nail the unique, specific textures of a busy airport with precise veracity. The fact that I was watching a film simply never registered. As an overall film experience, "The Terminal" succeeds beautifully where so many lesser films do not. It's the real deal, avoiding the much-fallen-into trap of substituting desirable qualities with more easily-accessible (though artificially-flavored) ingredients. To wit: "The Terminal" is sweet without being cloying, emotional without being manipulative, tender without being trite, smart without being pretentious, warm without being schmaltzy, romantic without forcing unrealistic resolutions, based in fact while still being wholly original, satisfyingly structured without succumbing to rote predictability, natural while avoiding earthiness, and genuinely funny without trying to be. It is as well-composed, well-written, well-directed, well-acted, and well-presented as any film I've seen this year, or any year. Even after having slept on it, I simply cannot find room for improvement in any aspect of this film. "The Terminal" is an exquisite example of American movie-making, and will be one of the ideal yardsticks through which I view other films for many years to come. And, once again, I give it a full ten thumbs up. BackHome - Info - Reviews - Map - Message Board - Photo Album |
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