Flies on sentiment; Grounded by reality

Rating: 5/10 (20 January 2008)

In the Terminal, Tom Hanks plays Victor, a traveler whose mythical East European country is overthrown while he is in transit to New York City. Upon arrival at the airport, he is told that his visa will not be honored and that he may not return to his homeland because he has lost his citizenship. It's loosely based on a true story, but the plot seems especially implausible in this day and age. You can tell it's going to take a mountain of sentimental handholding to overcome this bureaucratic mess.
Every movie is allowed to exploit a few moments of disbelief or coincidence, but the Terminal features an endless chain of unlikely occurrences. If you forget to turn your brain off and you have any experience with air travel, romance, or people in general, then you'll find yourself annoyed by this silly, incredulous movie. Mostly you'll question the irrational behavior of the characters. You'll constantly wonder why characters respond the way they do to events in this movie.
The relationship between Hanks and Amelia, a gorgeous airline steward played by Zeta Jones, is highly contrived. Amelia several times mentions how bizarre she is behaving whenever she spontaneously asks Viktor out for lunch having just met him. But merely acknowledging a plot hole does not patch the hole, and the movie plods on inexplicably.
*Spoilers ahead* I had to step away from the television for about 15 minutes. As I was leaving, Victor had conversed with Amelia two or three times, and he was helping an airport food worker and an immigration officer become acquainted by relaying messages back and forth though the two hadn't actually met. When I got back, Victor and Amelia were apparently dating in his airport apartment, and the two airport workers were getting engaged (and then married 20 seconds later). That was some 15 minutes!
Stanley Tucci's character is reduced to a sputtering megalomaniac of Disney super-villain proportions, evilly obsessed with the destruction of Victor. I could almost see him shaking his fist whiling cursing those meddling kids.
Overall, the movie pretends to offer a profound statement about persistence, friendship, loyalty and humanity. Instead it comes off as a silly, shallow, empty romantic comedy.