Very quiet, awesome movie

Rating: 9/10 (7 October 2006)

The first time I realized how good this movie is is when I forgot I was watching Tom Hanks, the actor I've seen in a hundred other roles, and realized I was watching one of the best movie characters I'd ever seen. There are no weird "Shyamalan" twists or turns, no gigantic earth-shaking reveals at the end of the film. Just a fun, gentle story, well-told, with a soft, audience-pleasing ending. After all, Viktor Navorsky's held our rooting interest through the entire film. Why shouldn't he (and we) get what we want?
And talk about supporting players...Stanley Tucci's Dixon is a wonderful airport administrator I loved to hate, and several of the day-workers, even some of the cops, who become his friends, make this a funny and sentimental fairy tale worthy of Spielberg's talents. The only downside is Catherine Zeta-Jones' character. As a romantic interest, she is so dysfunctional a person that I could not root for their romance to succeed. She is poison to Viktor, but he doesn't discover this until the end.
Still, this is a great film of discovery. Viktor discovers America from inside an airport terminal, we get a glimpse of a great character as he learns to understand our culture and communicate his needs. And we get to discover just what's so important about that Planters Peanuts can Viktor carries around.