He is the Terminalator.
But you don't get to declare "I'll be back" if you never leave.
So there at New York's JFK, an Eastern European-accented Tom Hanks remains, under the direction of Steven Spielberg, in 2004's lengthiest, most impeccably pedigreed … sitcom?
Yup. These bosom buddies have reteamed for a project that could, and no doubt will, double as a pilot—remember, you read it here first—for a network or basic-cable series. Only the series will likely be directed by whoever helms According to Jim, and star, say, Timothy Daly.
Not that The Terminal is a catastrophe. It just isn't a triumph. But that's enough for those who console themselves with the failures of others, especially when those "others" are a pair of pop-culture demigods who dare flash a hint of mortality and the occasional failure of artistic instinct. Given the buckets of bad buzz spilling off the Internet about The Terminal—SPIELBERG FAILS! HANKS MAKES ANOTHER STINKER AFTER THE LADYKILLERS!—we're deriving way too much malevolent, envy-driven joy ripping these talented guys to shreds.
Relax, Web wackos, it's only a movie. Get an offline life.
Having first paired on a film they'll probably never top as a team, Saving Private Ryan, they can only go down, where they meet the expectations of a press and public holding that their relatively greater talents make them relatively larger targets. Their second effort, Catch Me If You Can, frustrated the I-Told-You-So'ers. Though a lighthearted excursion, it was a charming and intelligent quasi-comedy that even assumed Oscar gravitas when Christopher Walken was nominated in a supporting turn. But The Terminal is the ITYS' red meat, a minor-league giggle-getter with a mushy center that, if it weren't a Stevie/Tommy production, would probably get a pass, or at least a good-natured dismissal.
The Terminal's downfall isn't that these two can't coax laughs and pathos, it's that they don't amount to much: a string of episodes without a strong destination for its story, or a sense of the hero's destiny that's worth the wait. That's a rarity for Spielberg, so legendary is his storytelling prowess. What finally plays out instead feels like a sentimental footnote, and while the denouement is upbeat on one level, it denies us the more obvious, larger happy ending, and therefore, a genuinely satisfying resolution.
Loosely based on a true story, The Terminal casts Hanks as Viktor Navorski, a native of Krakozhia, which, while he was airborne, suffered a coup. His passport invalidated until the U.S. diplomatically recognizes a new Krakozhian regime, he's the man without a country, indefinitely detained at JFK by a petty airport bureaucrat (Stanley Tucci, playing the evil, middle-aged white guy) and barred from entering New York City. "America is closed," a cop tells him. (Why no one else on Viktor's flight is detained is conveniently unexplained.) But, fully expecting Viktor to slip out and "become someone else's problem," the bureaucrat instead finds the outsider playing by the rules and remaining, ticking him off as the resourceful Viktor settles into the airport as an unsightly nuisance.
Hanks, digging into his bag of accents (Forest Gump, Catch Me If You Can) and Spielberg are playing reliable old cards: Hanks echoing his Cast Away persona, culturally adrift and comically concocting whatever's available to survive, and Spielberg borrowing his ET mojo as a lovable, benevolent alien tries to triumph amid the odd, unfriendly masses until they finally learn to adore him.
Within the familiar fish-out-of-water framework, Spielberg and Hanks at least make the funny moments matter as they're happening, before they evaporate into the irrelevant narrative: Viktor, nearly monosyllabic, trying to communicate; Viktor tearing apart an attached row of seats trying to sleep comfortably in an abandoned waiting lounge; a hungry Viktor amassing quarters from a luggage cart-return machine until he can afford bigger and better meals at the Burger King kiosk; Viktor playing romantic messenger between two airport employees in exchange for free grub on the sly; Viktor trying to find a job and taking call-backs at his "home number"—a pay phone directly in front of a potential employer.
As a flight attendant with a scrambled love life increasingly drawn to Viktor—and thrown together with him through a far-too convenient pileup of coincidences—Catherine Zeta-Jones turns up in spots for about a third of the movie, also adopting an accent (American) and remarkably resembling Jackie Bisset in the original Airport. As always, she's an alluring presence, but as with so much of this movie, her actions seem ultimately empty. Spielberg also taps the inevitable bond of the working stiffs between Viktor and a cadre of airport blue-collars (i.e., non-whites: black Chi McBride, Latino Diego Luna, and an especially funny actor, Kumar Pallana, as a grouchy Indian janitor). He also invests Viktor with a secret, one he carries around with him in a peanut can, the wrap-up of which dumps us at the abrupt finale and an annoying sense of filmus interruptus.
The Terminal is a mildly amusing journey to nowhere. Not a classic, not a crime. Just because Spielberg and Hanks haven't made Some Like It Hot doesn't mean they've made Gigli, either.