I love Tom Hanks. He’s one of my favorite actors of all time. Hubby and I will be going to see The Terminal this weekend, and I’m surprised there hasn’t been a thread about it (or maybe it sank so fast I missed it?). So, have you seen it? Did you like it, love it, loathe it? Since I haven’t seen it yet, please box any spoilers, although what I’ve read of it leads me to believe that there aren’t a lot of spoilers anyway. Thanks.
I was a bit skeptical going into it because:
a) Tom Hanks is one of my favorites, too, and I didn’t think I would buy him with a foreign accent. I thought I’d be sitting there the whole time thinking of him as Tom Hanks rather than as the character he is supposed to be portraying.
b) Catch Me If You Can (the last pairing of Hanks/Spielberg) was kind of a disappointment to me. It wasn’t bad at all and Tom Hanks was fine in it. I was just underwhelmed by it after the rave reviews it got.
c) Though some of my favorite movies are by Spielberg, he often tends to lay the sentiment on too thick.
It turns out I liked it. It was very entertaining. Not very deep and not at all realistic, but you can overlook that for the simple charm of Hanks and the supporting characters. In response to my fears above, Tom Hanks does a good job as always and I wasn’t distracted by his accent. It may not have been perfectly consistent, but it was quite servicable. The story does get overly sentimental a couple of times–and one of those times I thought was not at all believable and pretty poorly written:
When he translates for the guy who is trying to get the medication to his father
I was, however, surprised that the movie purposely avoids at least one obvious opportunity for sappiness, and that helps bring the rest of it into balance.
Everyone in the audience laughed a lot through the movie. It definitely has some funny moments and it’s a real “feel good” movie. I give it a thumbs up.
It was enjoyable.
Personally, I thought it could’ve been a lot better. But I think I’m getting cynical in my old age; lately very few movies exceed my standards. But Tom Hanks is great as always. Catherine Zeta Jones is sweet. There are some cute characters.
Some complaints:
The whole jazz thing was dumb. It was supposed to signify a deep connection to his dad, but instead it was just silly.
In the end, when he just went to get the one guys autograph and then left without seeing anything else, that was dumb too.
He shoulda got the girl.
Gupta exposing himself to be exported and face murder charges, just so Hanks can get his silly autograph before he leaves. That was dumb.
The vulcan INS agent gal who fell in love with the other guy and agreed to marry him sight unseen because Hanks said good things about him was dumb.
Why didn’t the 1,000 fountains thing work? I assume there was supposed to be some deeper significance, but it was dumb.
The Boss guy’s actions weren’t sensical. If he would have been played by a jerk who stuck by rules right or wrong, it would have made sense. But first he trys to give Hanks a hand, then he’s a jerk, then he’s not a jerk, then he’s a jerk. That was dumb.
There’s NO WAY that guy made less than Hanks did at construction, which was $38k a year. That was dumb.
That’s everything I can think of anyway.
Hm… Bill, I disagree with:
[spoiler]
He shoulda got the girl.
NO F’n WAY!!!
She was completely messed up. One of my favorite things about the movie is that she didn’t change, and the sweet, charming, nice Tom Hanks character didn’t spontaneously cause her to change behavior paterns and psychological issues that obviously have dogged her her whole life. That to me would have been the pat, expected way to do things, but instead she reamins unredemed, and Tom Hanks doesn’t end the story completely happily (for this reason and for the fact that Gupta’s goin’ to jail).
I do agree with you that the boss character was completely spastic and unbelievable. I just don’t see how Hanks’ character could have garnered as much animosity as he did. The boss ended up being an ‘evil yet laughably stupid’ nemesis; you know, the guy who shakes his fist at the hero as the hero evades yet again the traps laid for him (kind of the Bubs to an Eh Steve, if you will).[/spoiler]
Well it had to be a little, tiny bit realistic since it was based on the true story of the Iranian national who had to live at Charles de Gaulle Airport for 20+ years or so :D.
Yes, I know–I first learned about him a few years ago on the Straight Dope home page. What I found to be most unrealistic were the actions of the boss guy, as Bill H. discussed.
Eonwe,
But dude, it was a FEEL GOOD movie!
I mean, I love darkness; I live for dark movies. But this was no Resevoir Dogs; the man just wanted to fill his peanut tin for his dead dad and go home. Couldn’t he have gotten a little love along the way?
The thing about the INS boss is that they didn’t explore why Hanks did not qualify to get into the country. He simple said, “He doesn’t qualify for this or for that so there’s nothing I can do.” They should have written that out in more of a Catch-22 style.
I basically liked the movie. I did think the end of the film was a bit of a let down.
At one key point a security guard tells Hanks friends how Hanks is being blackmailed but that should have been the heavy-set guard, not some guy we have hardly seen in the film.
I’m glad it wasn’t Meg Ryan.
There’s a really interesting, arty movie about post-9/11 American security paranoia and the inflexibility of the legal system, as told from the perspective of a non-English speaking visitor, that struggles to assert itself at the beginning of the movie. That story, I would have loved to see. Unfortunately, it’s quickly buried by a treacly love story with a rather bizarre ending, a bunch of irrational whacky sidekicks, and several subplots that unexpectedly fizzle and die before the viewer’s very eyes.
I’ve seen worse, but for the price, I recommend renting it on video later or skipping it altogether.
Well, we saw the movie last night. There were some things about it that I didn’t care much for (I couldn’t buy the idea that the boss man was making less than 38K in an upper management position in NYC, for heaven’s sake!), but I’m glad the love story didn’t end differently. As for the rest of the stuff, heck, I’m willing to overlook a lot. It was a feel-good movie that made me feel good. FWIW, I don’t think a weaker actor could have pulled it off, but Hanks was great! I especially liked the scene where the boss man says “All you have to do is say you’re afraid, and youc an get out of here until it’s time for you to go to court; are you afraid of Krakohzia?” And Viktor says “No. It’s my home why should I be afraid?” But then continues, as he’s being dragged out of the office “I am afraid for ghosts; I am afraid for wolf-man. . .I am afraid for sharks”. Hubby, whose hearing is not that good, didn’t pick up on that part, but it cracked me up.
Don’t know why I put that in spoiler earlier, now that I think about it. But I agree, in fact I literally burst out laughing at that scene. It’s not supposed to be a funny scene at all, but it was so completely unbelievable.
One scene that I actually liked was when Gupta was doing the juggling tricks in the background while they’re eating dinner.