‘The Terminal’ is a sweet puff pastry that is so light that it is fun and yet completely unfulfilling. It is fun while you are working on it but gives you an aftertaste of having chewed cotton balls for an hour or two. It uses the best of ingredients but in the simplest of ways. It reduces them to their most primal roles and mocks at everyone’s intelligence but appeals to everyone’s heart.
Spielberg, Hanks and Robert Zemeckis together have made more money than most movie producers and actors put together. This is an ‘A’ team of marketers and vendors of dreams. This film is their next project and bears every mark of their enterprise. From emotions, to tears, to undying love and unusual hatred. It is a baroque window display to a showroom that is really empty.
Loosely based on a true story, The Terminal tells a tale of Tom Hanks (playing an eastern European with aplomb) who comes to JFK airport terminal in New York but cannot get into the country as his home country ceases to exist (per US) after a coup. From here Mr. Spielberg tells us that being stuck on an airport terminal is actually quite fun. You can expect everything that you never got anywhere – friendship, romance, true love, excitement, satisfaction of a job well done – all here. It is after all, a fun place. This is probably the most important accomplishment and failure of the film. Accomplishment because it needs a Spielberg to see a serious comedy in the plot and a failure because instead of it being a scathing expose of the often false bureaucratic measures that generally have an effect opposite of what their intent was, it merely prods lightly in the ribs and moves on. It is not that bad after-all, it seems to say.
Mr. Hanks is the goody-two-shoes again. Hopefully he can see how predictable and utterly boring he has become. Even though he acts well, he totally fails to connect. You feel nothing for him. He is a gump, after-all.
Ms. Zeta Jones is wasted again. In a role more fit for a less talented actress (and certainly less prettier) she seems to try hard to keep a somber face and do her part.
The most fun part of the film is probably the horde of lesser known supporting actors who are both entertaining and sincere. They play various characters at the airport. All of them are the epitome of honesty and decency, of course, in line with the film but they are generally a lot of fun and give the film some of its soul.
Mr. Spielberg’s return to fairy tales continues with this film. If living up to expectations of a great filmmaker was a measure, he disappoints but if making an entertaining film was a measure than he succeeds, much like he almost always does.
Spielberg, Hanks and Robert Zemeckis together have made more money than most movie producers and actors put together. This is an ‘A’ team of marketers and vendors of dreams. This film is their next project and bears every mark of their enterprise. From emotions, to tears, to undying love and unusual hatred. It is a baroque window display to a showroom that is really empty.
Loosely based on a true story, The Terminal tells a tale of Tom Hanks (playing an eastern European with aplomb) who comes to JFK airport terminal in New York but cannot get into the country as his home country ceases to exist (per US) after a coup. From here Mr. Spielberg tells us that being stuck on an airport terminal is actually quite fun. You can expect everything that you never got anywhere – friendship, romance, true love, excitement, satisfaction of a job well done – all here. It is after all, a fun place. This is probably the most important accomplishment and failure of the film. Accomplishment because it needs a Spielberg to see a serious comedy in the plot and a failure because instead of it being a scathing expose of the often false bureaucratic measures that generally have an effect opposite of what their intent was, it merely prods lightly in the ribs and moves on. It is not that bad after-all, it seems to say.
Mr. Hanks is the goody-two-shoes again. Hopefully he can see how predictable and utterly boring he has become. Even though he acts well, he totally fails to connect. You feel nothing for him. He is a gump, after-all.
Ms. Zeta Jones is wasted again. In a role more fit for a less talented actress (and certainly less prettier) she seems to try hard to keep a somber face and do her part.
The most fun part of the film is probably the horde of lesser known supporting actors who are both entertaining and sincere. They play various characters at the airport. All of them are the epitome of honesty and decency, of course, in line with the film but they are generally a lot of fun and give the film some of its soul.
Mr. Spielberg’s return to fairy tales continues with this film. If living up to expectations of a great filmmaker was a measure, he disappoints but if making an entertaining film was a measure than he succeeds, much like he almost always does.