Hanks and Spielberg team up again for a sometimes saccharine and overlong, but very enjoyable, effort.

Rating: Null/10 (5 September 2004)

Rating: **** (out of *****)
The latest Steven Spielberg film asks the following question: What if you were forced to live in an airport terminal indefinitely, with the eyes of the men in charge, and possibly the rest of the world, upon you?
Tom Hanks plays Viktor Navorski, a citizen of the fictional country of Krakozhia. Poor Viktor  he only wanted to fly to New York to carry out a brief errand, but all that he has found out is that his country is under siege, leaving him with both a cancelled VISA and the inability to return home. A meeting with JFK Airport chief Frank Dixon (Stanley Tucci) leads him to realize that he can't enter the United States either, and as a result, he is trapped in the terminal. Living there initially proves a hard slog, especially considering his language difficulties, but in time he finds both friendship and even love from the most unlikely of places.
The Terminal has the inventiveness of Cast Away and the implausibility of Love Actually, with a premise that draws memories of The Truman Show. (Not surprising, really, when you see that The Truman Show's writer, Andrew Niccol, is one of the credited writers.) All these elements, perhaps surprisingly, work in its favour  even though you feel echoes of all the aforementioned films, this film stands on its own to the point where you should enjoy it very much. But you must suspend your disbelief before you enter the cinema. For only on Planet Spielberg do you find airport terminals as attractive and conveniently constructed as this one. Only on Planet Spielberg would you find both a caring and beautiful INS agent (in the form of Zoë Saldana). And only on Planet Spielberg do you see stewardesses who look uncannily like Catherine Zeta Jones.
And then there's the product placement, which is needed to make the setting more realistic (yeah, sure). Sorry Steve, I let you off the hook in Minority Report because at least there you were using the brand names to illustrate invasion of privacy. It doesn't seem like that here. I'm almost certain now that what Minority Report did for the GAP & Lexus, The Terminal will do for Burger King, Starbucks and Hugo Boss.
Spielberg has fallen foul of some critics by casting the all-American everyman, Tom Hanks, as the Russian, sorry, Krakozhian immigrant. But I bought Hanks as Navorski. There's nothing exaggerated or unsubtle about Viktor's mannerisms. No overreacting, no melodrama, just a restrained portrayal (with a plausible accent). The comparisons to Forrest Gump have been floating around, but they shouldn't be  Viktor's innocence comes not from what he is, but the land he is in.
Even though all of the other characters seem like they would only exist in a fantasy (and that is, after all, what The Terminal is) the actors playing them invest them with the right amount of believability. For example, even though Stanley Tucci's character is unfortunately overwritten, Tucci plays him with enough restraint that he is credible. What puzzles me, though, is how Catherine Zeta Jones can remain such a mystery; so irritating off screen, yet rather charming on screen.
The Terminal succeeds better than Love Actually because Spielberg doesn't try too hard to give all the characters equal screen time. This isn't an ensemble piece, and although we see enough of the supporting cast, the focus is always on Viktor Navorski. Yeah, the film is predictable. It's sometimes really corny, and Spielberg, as with his last two films, doesn't really know when to end the film. Yet in general, it leaves you with an unmistakable smile on your face throughout  and really, what more could you ask for?