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astrosheil [ 6.5 ]
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Tom Hanks is wonderful as a foreign person who is stuck in an airport terminal until his country finds peace. While he is there, he creates quite a life for himself. Because he deeply cares for others, they cannot help but return this caring and somehow he not only survives but thrives. As good as Hanks was, the story itself and the other characters don't quite hold together. In particular, Catherine Zeta Jones character was poorly written. Spielberg has done better.
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Edwards [ 7.0 ]
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Another sterling manipulation of mundane convention foiled at the very end by Spielberg's misconception that he's giving audiences what they want with some insulting and totally simplistic tacked-on moment of gratification. In A.I. it was all that post-underwater stuff, although I've heard convincing arguments about the merits there. In Minority Report it was that last shot showing Tom Cruise with his newly pregnant wife, here it's everything after he leaves the airport. Everything after that point we simply intuited as happening anyway - why bother filming it, Spielberg? Give us a break and respect our understanding and appreciation of ambiguity. 'Less is more' is an adage Spielberg couldn't comprehend to save his own life
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Dancing_P [ 6.5 ]
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I'm a big defender of Spielberg but if he keeps making stuff like this, I can't exactly stick up for him anymore. It's not that The Terminal is bad, but it falters under Spielberg's patented brand of sap because, frankly, the plot's a bit flimsy to support a two hour film. Victor Navorski (Tom Hanks) lands in New York, planning to go visit the Big Apple when he is taken aside by the Department of Homeland Security (led by hardass Stanley Tucci) and told that due to a coup in his home country of Krakozhia, he now has no nationality. Since he cannot go into the US, Victor is forced to remain inside the airport terminal until things are resolved. And so begins the cutesy-poo journey of Victor Navorski in JFK Airport. He learns English, makes friends with the other airport workers (Diego Luna, Chi McBride and god amongst men Kumar Pallana) and has the requisite romance with a flight attendant (Catherine Zeta-Jones, actually pretty good). That's the extent of the plot... now stretch this to two hours. Add to this the fact that the character of Victor is not fleshed out at all; we know nothing of what he did in Krakozhia, if he had a family, or anything of that sort. He simply comes in a blank slate shaped by Burger Kings and W.H. Smiths. It's kinda hard to believe that a man would just blindly go with whatever's in front of him, having absolutely no beliefs or anything of that sort. It's a quirky, enjoyable little movie but the emotional impact is zilch. It's beautifully shot (one thing that Spielberg cannot be faulted for) but rather empty. Hanks is good, if broad, and Stanley Tucci is terrific as the villain of the piece. Major props go out to Spielberg for casting Wes Anderson regular Kumar Pallana in a major supporting role; you can never have too much Kumar. The Terminal is a good little movie that has been turned into an okay big movie. It's a rainy day rental... or a dollar theater viewing.
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chapter11 [ 6.0 ]
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Fell in love with Hanks's character in this one .. unfortunately, it's waaay too long, and, to crib from quite literally everybody else, the film is absolutely dripping with Spielberg overkill. Catherine Zeta-Jones and Stanley Tucci are wasted on cardboard characters-- the workers (Chi McBride and the others) are the only characters given any real depth or pathos, and they're great characters, but they're not the entire movie (unfortunately) and so a lot of it ends up being kind of blah. Still, Hanks is predictably terrific.
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| Weighted Rating | : 6.4 |
| No. Ratings | : 15 | |
| No. Reviews | : 7 | |
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