Terminal

Starring: Margot Robbie, Simon Pegg, Dexter Fletcher, Mike Meyers, Max Irons, Katarina Cas, Nick Moran
Directed by: Vaughn Stein
Rating: Not rated
Genre: Drama, Thriller
2018

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: Several assassins and criminals come together around Terminal for nefarious purposes.

Review:

Tim: It's hard to know exactly where Terminal went wrong, but it most certainly does. I believe this film was simultaneously limited released in theaters and VOD. That's exactly what the movie feels like- clearly not something that deserved much of a theatrical release. This movie is simply not very good at all.

The script is a mess. It felt like writer/director Vaughn Stein watched a bunch of movies he really liked and wrote a script stealing various aspects of those films, cramming them all together. Everything in Terminal has been done before and done significantly better than it is here. The movie is beyond predictable. I laughed when the big "twist" was revealed, which is incredibly obvious. Now, there is a twist after the twist that I didn't see coming, but I didn't exactly care about that. It created no sense of awe, just a minor shrug of the shoulders. This movie tries to tell a story that weaves multiple characters together and none of them are especially interesting. I spent the first half of the movie mostly confused about what I was watching. When the story lines come together, it eventually makes more sense. However, there's no sense of the earlier confusion being worth it. The answers we get aren't satisfying enough to justify the mess the story is in.

The cast isn't great. I know Margot Robbie got some accolades for her performance, but it just felt derivative of her role in Suicide Squad. I sincerely hope she stays away from these slightly unhinged characters. Sure, she was good as Harley Quinn, but I worry that her performance there went to her head. That she'll continue to look for these kooky characters as she believes she has a strength there. It feels like a similar path that Johnny Depp took, and look how that turned out. Robbie is okay here, but acted demented and slightly crazy while being smarter than everyone only takes you so far. She's not great in this role. I did enjoy Simon Pegg. He gives perhaps the best performance of the film and his story was one of the more interesting (and surprising) ones. Dexter Fletcher was definitely one of the stronger cast members and I mostly enjoyed his performance. It was funny to see Mike Meyers here. I liked that he was branching out and trying something different, but his performance wasn't what the role required. It was a decent idea but it's not as effective as intended. I'm not sure what happened with Max Irons. It felt like he put a lot of effort into his role, but it felt subpar. I can't say I ever felt excited or interested in his performance. It felt cheesy and second rate. I do think the overall quality of the cast was better than what showed up on screen, so you have to blame director Vaughn Stein. He was making his feature film directorial debut here and it's a disappointing first time behind the camera.

It was intriguing to watch this movie and see so clearly what kind of movie it wanted to be. The goal was to be this stylized, twisting thriller that pulls the rug from under the audience while weaving different character's stories together in this offbeat way. Other movies have taken this route and succeeded. Stein's script (and therefore, his writing) is never as good as he thinks it is. This movie needed to be one step ahead of the audience and it usually feels like it trails behind. This is a failure of a movie and Stein has to reap most of the criticism for that.

I usually skip movies like this and I kind of wish I did in this case. This is a generic, forgettable, unintelligent movie that barely held my attention for its short 1 hour, 35 minute run time. I understand that many directors have inauspicious starts, but based on this one data point, I may be avoiding Stein's work in the future.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating- 5


If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Den of Thieves, The Usual Suspects, Focus