Review

Review Date: 20-June-04
Spoiler Rating: Medium
Juju Judgment: Junk

The Terminal (2004)

Steven Spielberg has been called a number of impressive things over the years, like the most successful director of all time, one of the greatest filmmakers ever, the father of the summer blockbuster, etc., but (Indiana Jones withstanding) his work has never impressed me much. Consequently, my expectations heading into his latest movie weren't all that high, and yet The Terminal still fell short of them. People can call him what they like, but this picture ought to narrow the list of possibilities: I know Frank Capra (or at least I have watched a lot of his movies), and Steven Spielberg is no Frank Capra.

He sure tries to be, though, with The Terminal. Taking a weak script by Sacha Gervasi and Jeff Nathanson, Spielberg assembles a strong cast for the story of Viktor Navorski (Tom Hanks), a native of the fictitious European country of Krakozhia (Krakozhia?) who arrives in New York shortly after a coup has toppled his nation's government and rendered his passport invalid. With almost no English and no place to go (easily or legally), Viktor must hunker down in the airport and wait for his luck and the winds of political fortune to change. The film ticks off the adventures he meets in this strange new home, specifically the relationships he forms with the airport's selfish and ambitious security manager (Stanley Tucci), who views him as a nemesis, and a number of airport/airline employees who quickly come to regard him as a friend. This group includes Catherine Zeta-Jones as a messed-up flight attendant, Diego Luna as a lovestruck kitchen worker, Zoe Saldana as an INS agent, Chi McBride as a luggage handler, and Kumar Pallana as a janitor with a twisted sense of humor (and honor).

The Terminal lurches in ungainly fashion between drama, slapstick, romantic comedy, and a mawkish sentimentality delivered specifically for Father's Day. (Capra, by contrast, made struggle, love, humor, and sweetness feel like organic elements of a well-rounded existence.) Because it starts rambling right off the bat, it's difficult to buy into a single one of the film's implausibilities regarding the slackness of airport security, Viktor's actions and motivations, or the chance occurrences that take place over the nine months (!) of his supposedly amusing incarceration. The film appears more than anything to be a flimsy excuse for rampant product placement. (I think Burger King wins the fast food war this summer, for while Super Size Me makes eating a Big Mac look barf-worthy, this makes eating a Whopper look like salvation.) The clash of moods reaches its unfortunate climax in the penultimate scene outside the airport, when abrupt switches in the score highlight sudden changes from sappy liberation to cornball passion to angry comeuppance. Spielberg apparently assumes that the audience will warm to the vagaries of the tale because of his cast, but he proves instead, regrettably, that Tom Hanks isn't always likable and cannot always spin gold from a rat's nest.

The film does have a unifying motif about waiting (at least until the end, when it switches to something about courage, friendship, and the good ol' U S of A), and this is the one aspect of The Terminal that strikes a chord. Viktor Navorski might be able to endure living in an airport for a year, but watching him do so for just two hours feels interminable.

Copyright © 2004 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.