a good piece of humanist comedy, nothing more, nothing less

Rating: 7/10 (14 January 2006)

The Terminal is sort of like a a Frank Capra tale spun into 21st century America, with it a sort of divide between the naive innocence of ordinary men, and the cynicism of the outside world. It also is akin to E.T. as being about an outsider who comes into a strange situation, gets befriended, but in reality is really all on his own on his quest. There is a sweetness to the film that works well, even when all plausibility at times goes right out the window in return to try and make shamelessly entertaining product. Steven Spielberg here has a film that is meant, in a way, as THE film for airline movies, as it can be geared for kids and adults, though like airplanes its not always the best experience.
Tom Hanks is genuine for a lot of the performance, and at least a little fascinating, as Viktor Navorski, a refugee from a country made up for the sake of the film (though, apparently, his accent is for real). He's stuck in the airport, not able to leave into New York City or back to war-torn home. So, he sticks around, he meets the janitor, he runs into a emotionally weary flight attendant (Catherine Zeta-Jones, not the best she's done but cute enough), and gets to become familiar company around the huge terminal. It's a huge place, with adversiting that almost makes it like a insular Times Square. During this Viktor goes from befriending the workers, to befriending the attendant, which leads to some romantic interest- or maybe not. Who knows with Viktor's true intentions to stick around for his chance to get into New York City. The reason he ends up telling is, actually, one of the most touching moments in the film, maybe even in the better of Spielberg films.
This isn't, however, overall anything great in the filmmaker's cannon. Maybe not a 'minor' work, but it's often with too much whimsey. Or maybe not; it is a film that is meant as a crowd-pleaser, or a heartwarmer, but at times isn't too sure how to balance between some of the believability the script needs at times (i.e. why is the focus sometimes squarely on Navorski, when its a security station meant to focus on everyone at the airport). The visual styling is impressive, with some cool camera sweeps and tracks in the immense set. But it doesn't add up to anything that marks it as a great film. It also doesn't hold up as well as Spielberg's other films on repeat viewings; on a first go-around it is sheerly entertainment, but once seen again certain scenes bring out some groans. It might be even more enlightening or fun for kids, as it is on that sort of E.T. level. And Hanks' performance, which only shows some dimension towards the last twenty minutes, is good enough, though could've been more.
I guess in short I'm saying that the Terminal is reccomendable, especially as a 'date' movie of sorts, though I wouldn't say to start off with it as the first Spielberg ever. That being said, Kumar Palau (the janitor character, also a Wes Anderson regular), is the best thing about the movie.