Terminal was ripped to shreds by critics, I see why but I don't think they gave it enough credit. There's a lot of futuristic noir flourishes, the movie is bathing in neon light and seedy environments. This isn't new, its Blade Runner-esque but the cinematography is admittedly gorgeous in this. Just because it has been done before (lately with Altered Carbon and Mute) doesn't make it any less impressive. It was a nice touch and it deserves to be mentioned, even if it doesn't quite save the movie.
The plot of Terminal is very reminiscent of Guy Ritchie's movies. There's some Snatch or Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels moments but the whole movie doesn't operate as well overall. We get introduced to a bunch of seedy characters with dubious morals. They all come in and out of this train station in the middle of the night and the common thread between them is the character of Annie (Margot Robbie). She's an assassin who works part-time as a waitress and stripper. Through her comings and goings, we meet a terminally ill teacher Bill (Simon Pegg), a pair of mismatched hitmen Vince (Dexter Fletcher) and Alfred (Max Irons) and an odd janitor Clinton (Mike Myers). How these interactions play into the larger plot is a mystery to us until the final turn. The setup isn't bad, we've seen it before and although there are plot holes, none of them were bad enough to completely derail the movie. It was enough to keep me interested but I did find my attention drifting in and out because of the lack of cohesion. As a story, its very middle of the road for the genre.
Any heat for this movie was likely due to Margot Robbie's involvement as the main character. She keeps climbing the ladder and its deserved, she's great and I consider myself a fan of hers. She's good in Terminal, she's surprisingly committed, and she carries the movie capably. I do agree with some of the other reviewers in that she comes off as British Harley Quinn, but she didn't phone it in. Pegg is his typical charming self, he's very low-key in this but he works well with Robbie and I particularly enjoyed the montage that they share near the tail-end of the movie. Fletcher and Irons were odd, neither of them were terrible but Fletcher was over doing it and Irons was a little stiff. It was nice to see Mike Myers again and I think he did about as well as he could have with the material. Its a big distance from where his character starts to where he ends up and it makes his performance a little awkward by the end.
I was down the middle on Terminal for most of its run time for all the reasons listed above. It was never stellar, but it had its moments. I was more than ready to just let it float the rest of the way to whatever normal twist ending it had up its sleeve and call it a day. But when the confrontation comes between Annie and Bill, the movie doesn't just dip its toes into a pool of nonsense/crazy, it cannonballs into it. I wasn't just snickering, I was laughing when Terminal ended. Its not that the twist it takes is new, its handled in such a rough and implausible manner that I was shocked. But it didn't derail the movie for me, it actually improved it. It made Terminal memorable and while I would never say that this movie is good, its going to hold a place in my memory for insane plot twists.
I feel a little guilty for giving Terminal as high of a rating as I have. I liked the style of the movie and some of the performances (notably Robbie, Pegg and some of Myers) were solid. But it never reached high enough for something great and in any other movie, that twist ending would have knocked it down to a 3 or a 4/10. But that ending pushed the movie from mediocre to so bad its good territory for me. I can't call Terminal excellent but if you enjoy campy cinema, this is something you should see. I'm giving Terminal a 6/10 and I feel like I'm being generous.
