The Terminal

This movie just skims the surface and never goes into depth. The screenplay isn’t one of the best ever, the whole storyline involving Catherine is pointless, but still... Spielberg is too good a director and Hanks too good an actor for this movie to be merely mediocre. It’s more like a pleasant relax movie that gets to you; it’s much better in the first “short stories" part than in the second part where it is too focused on the love story and obligations from the past. (27/02/2005)

Very nice thing. The first half, with the brilliantly confused Hanks and his delicious accent, is very funny and brisk, the love story with the stewardess (the really beautiful Zeta-Jones) is pleasant, the non-clichéd climax goes against the established templates – I had imagined something else, but I’m glad Spielberg (and the screenwriter) surprised me. Even the ending was within acceptable limits, there was no violent playing on emotions (so typical of Spielberg). Also a huge compliment to the production team who built a fully functional airport hall especially for this film, hats off to them. A small surprise to me was the poor financial response from American audiences, could the Hanks-Spielberg star pairing no longer be a sure bet? Together with overseas earnings, Terminal just about paid for itself. PS: A message for golfista: you're wrong, kid. Considering that about 50 percent of the revenue goes to the cinema operators, with 218 million earnings, that's about a hundred million for DreamWorks, so as I said – Spielberg probably wasn't too happy. (13/01/2005)

The Terminal reminds me of a sweet and heavily praised lemonade in enticing packaging, which someone opens and leaves on the table for a week. It's simply too calculated and not very functional. Of course, Tom Hanks and Catherine Zeta-Jones continue to be among the most likable actors of their generation, Spielberg knows his craft, and the film maintains a certain level throughout. It's predictable to the point of misery, except for the final resolution, which makes me wonder why Hanks actually endured that crazy stay at the airport. If I had been considering three stars until then, at that point I was definitively convinced to give it a lower rating. The resolution is, diplomatically speaking, naïve, but it leaves me with a far more expressive phrase on my lips. The overall impression is influenced by an inappropriately chosen level of stylization and exaggeration. The relationship between reality and the absurdity of what is seen simply jars. Furthermore, the slogging message of family values and human solidarity gradually pushes Spielberg to the very brink of kitsch. Perhaps the weakest creation that I have had the opportunity to see from his workshop... Overall impression: 45%. (11/03/2010)

A truly beautiful film, built primarily on the brilliant performance of Tom Hanks, without him, even Spielberg would have had a very difficult time. But this is how you can make a funny and touching romantic story, which can perhaps only be faulted for being a truly reprehensible waste of the Spielbergian language – the entire second half does not correspond to the greatest director of our time, but to a regular Hollywood fairy tale on the theme of "romance for the whole family"... Still, considering my platonic love for the gorgeous Catherine, a fine film :)) 80% (02/06/2012)

What do a ten-year-old child, a mentally handicapped individual, and a resident of the former Eastern Bloc have in common? In the context of Hollywood screenwriting, almost everything. They are, in fact, popular screenwriting crutches when a film needs to break through some rigid system by way of endearingly naive characters who explain to us with good-natured irony the beauty in the little things, the pointlessness of order and restrictions, or some other such Dušek. The Terminal had the potential to join my favorites on the list of movies that turn vast buildings into chaotic and autonomous organisms (Die Hard 2, Control, Subway, Delicatessen) full of oddball characters, forgotten rooms and secret passages, places where everyone has their mysterious calling. And yet the primary purpose of a film should not be to try to lure back to airport terminals the passengers who disappeared in fear after 9/11. It's not the only film with a similar purpose (see Up in the Air), but by trying to humanize the draconian screening measures at American airports it simply runs into screenwriting alleys you can't turn around in. The notion that at any time in the last 20 years, someone at a New York airport has made one of its chairs into his own flat, built his own fountain, had all the workers at the shops there winking hello at him, or as a junior immigration officer told a senior immigration officer that he could learn a little humanity from an Eastern European immigrant, is squeezed out of the fingertips by a team of people who clearly no longer have much contact with reality but feel they should be lecturing us about it. The scene where the protagonist, in some fit of spontaneity, makes a piece of wood paneling overnight and gets a job as a laborer gets my bleeding-ass screenwriting award. (31/01/2022)