June 19, 2004

Should Have Been Better

Well... after a wonderful evening out with Anna in which we went and had a nice dinner and saw The Terminal, I must say I am pretty well ready for sleep. That said, I really can't say that The Terminal is all that bad, and it's actually fairly high up on the list as far as chick-flicks are concerned.

Tom Hanks does a fantastic job as the stranded Viktor Navorski, a traveller from a foreign country where a coup has just taken place and whose status in the international community is now in flux. To put a long story short, Navorski must attempt to survive in an airport (which is pretty much hostile by definition) and becomes romantically interested in Catherine Zeta-Jones' character Amelia - a promiscuous and emotionally confused flight attendant with a horrible taste in men and an irresistable tendancy to hook up with the married variety.

To put it fairly, the acting is superb, the cinematography is solid, and the musical score and sound are brilliant. My problem is with Spielberg and the screenwriters. The antagonist is illogical, poorly-explained and nigh schizophrenic. The story itself is a tad choppy with some rather poorly-explained jumps. In the end The Terminal comes off as a wonderfully sappy movie with a good feel... but you can't help but think that if anyone could have done better and should have done better, it's Spielberg backed by the very strong cast he had at his disposal... and thus the film disappoints in that regard. It should have been better... I think the 78% overall that I rated it pretty much sums my feelings up fairly nicely

Posted by Vengeful Cynic at June 19, 2004 11:57 PM | TrackBack