Over-rated and awful

Rating: 1/10 (1 December 2004)

There are so many things wrong with this film I don't know where to begin. I'll start by saying that Spielberg and producers should be ashamed of themselves to make this film of such an awful, impractical, predictable, script that should have been presented as a tongue and cheek spoof rather than an overdone, gingerbread light comedy with sappy dramatic moments. The producers of this hackneyed film surely believed that all moviegoers are stupid enough to ignore plot holes the size of Antarctica, buy into situations that are so unrealistic that they are laughable, and be put under a spell by the script's trite gadget formulas that these screenwriters may have picked up at a seminar in Culver City.
The Terminal has a heavy arsenal of anomalies, inconsistencies, and farces, and canards: Chinese tourists waiting a connecting flight to Disneyland in Orlando don't have cameras as they wait to board. So what? They are not in Disneyland yet to take pictures yet.
There is no way any airport authorities would detain a "nationless" passenger to the confines of enormous an airport shopping mall where he or she would have the benefit to escape from a gaggle of fire exits in the fast food stations. Where was the B.C.I.S (immigration)? If Stanley Tucci's character was so resolute about having someone else deal with this airport refugee why didn't he just call him or her in the first place? By the end of the movie, Hanks seems to have achieved an enormous amount of revere and power in the airport by his recognition of a photocopy of a hand. Why? Because he tells a Russian transit in cryptic Bulgarian to convince airport authorities that the medicine he is carrying without approval will be used to help cure a goat somewhere in Canada. Need I say more.
There is so much more: Catherine Zeta Jones' consciously neurotic character, who, for some reason, prattles on and on about Napoleon, which by the way, has no connection whatsoever to the story. She confesses to Tom Hanks about her lonesomeness and need for healthy relationship, which she finds in Hanks, however, for some incomplete reason (perhaps she was forced to do another exciting T Mobile commercial) that the producers may of had to quibble over, disappears like thief in the night and returns only for a glimpse as she gets out of a taxi, with a look of contentment on her face that tells us, "see, I told you that I'm high maintenance". And...?
In the muddled 3rd Act we finally find out, without any consequential anticipation, what is inside the Planter box? Autographs from Jazz musicians. So what did we learn from this film? Jazz is good, being stuck in an airport is bad, being stuck watching this movie is the worst.