Terminal decline?

Rating: Null/10 (17 September 2004)

'SPIELBERG-LITE': (Noun). Intelligence-insulting work produced by a great director choosing to rest on his laurels. See Always (1989), Hook (1991), The Lost World (1997) Minority Report (2002), and now The Terminal.
Tom Hanks, reverting to the mush that made him famous, is Viktor Navorski, a New York-bound traveler. Armed only with luggage and a Big Apple tour-guide, he finds himself bereft of a homeland and trapped in JFK airport when war breaks out in Krakozia, the tiny eastern European state from which he hails. Officially, his nation now no longer exists and his passport is 'unacceptable'  he can't set foot on US soil and, until the conflict is ended, can't return home. He is now in the domain of Frank Dixon (Stanley Tucci)  the airport's heartless head honcho who, while realizing that Navorski is now obliged to remain in the airport until the Krakozia situation changes, nevertheless embarks on a personal crusade to make life as difficult as possible for his airport's unwanted resident. Ho-hum.
Well-meaning it may be, but that does not excuse what is perhaps the worst Spielberg film, period. Bereft of the enchantment and wonder that make even his most sentimental previous excesses watchable, Terminal labours ponderously towards significance from take-off, without ever getting near its destination.
Hanks, while doing his best in his opening set-pieces to revive the spirit of Chaplin's tramp character, must still take his fair share of the blame  one can only assume that he has, by this stage in his career, an understanding of the difference between scripts that soar, jet-like, or sink like lead balloons, but, judging by the clunking 'romantic' dialogue that he and cabin attendant Amelia Warren (Catherine Zeta-Jones) exchange, one wonders.
And the reasons behind casting the Welsh-whinger will forever remain mysteriousZeta-Jones' personality is well suited to playing hard-nosed bitches á la Intolerable Cruelty and Chicago, but a love-lorn perpetual mistress? Please.
Only Tucci emerges from this mess with any dignity  his character, though merely created to fill the narrative gap where a Spielberg villain would normally reside, is nevertheless witty and nasty enough to provide some much-needed zest. As for the rest, 'directorial artistic decline' doesn't even come close. One can only hope it's not terminal.