Terminal (2018) – Review

What can I say that is positive about Terminal? It has some kind of funny moments. I guess it looks pretty as well. Its neon-drenched full of atmospheric smoke and dust. But if you by chance decide to look behind this semi-beautiful sheen what you find is a horrid and hollow mess of a movie. Full of over the top characters, terrible dialogue and enough bad acting to fill all the Razzie’s nomination list. I think its safe to say I didn’t enjoy Terminal, not even a little bit.

We open on Margot Robbie in a confessions box in a church, she lights a cigarette and says “Bless me, father, for I have sinned” in a bad Londoner accent. It basically sums up the movie there. We have some edgy characters that are all desperate for attention, all running around with over the top British accents and badly written dialogue.

The movie is set primarily in the terminal of a train station in London. Margot Robbie plays a mysterious blonde with a passion for Lewis Carroll’s novel Alice in Wonderland. This is something the movie will not let you forget. Constant in your face referencing and quotes, I suppose that London is supposed to be her Wonderland and she is trying to be a mixture of Alice and the Mad Hatter. A hired gun asking the anonymous Mr Franklin for the exclusive rights to his contracts, something he will give her if she takes out the pair hired previously.

Then we cut away and meet a man on the platform of the train station looking for a train going nowhere (Simon Pegg), coughing away and slowly dying. He is told there are none by the night supervisor (Mike Myers) and decides to get a coffee at The End of The Line Café. Who should be in there but Margot Robbie, completely different in appearance from when we last saw her, this time as a waitress. From there they discuss his illness and how he is terminal. Then we cut back to 3 weeks earlier where we meet a pair of contract killers who are hired to kill someone by Mr Franklin. This hit is taken out in an annoying and overly complex way that also involves Margot Robbie in many different outfits and locations. It just screams “look at us and how smart we are. The story then cuts between these two locations and stories until the climax when they merge. It’s clunky and boring. It doesn’t flow in any way and makes you want to get up and leave it alone.

I won’t tell you what happens in the end but if you watch the movie you can guess what will happen in the first 10 or 15 minutes. What it decides to do though is give you a massive twist that it treats with as a great spectacle. However, the twist is just what was blatantly obvious from the last 90 minutes which manages to make it even more insufferable. It loses all subtly and any remanence of intelligence that it had left over.

You must wonder what was going through the team’s mind when they were making this movie? Did they decide to watch Pulp Fiction and other gloriously stylised indie movies while necking the contents of a glow stick? It really does seem entirely likely. The effects of the neon liquid still hadn’t left their system by the time it came to put pen to paper as nobody seems to understand what human behaviour or, how to write interesting crazy characters. Then you also must spare a thought for the actors who thought it would be a good idea to be in it. Mike Myers, of all people, decided he should come out of retirement and reignite his film career based on this script?

It is quite sad really. The film had promise but descends into more of a desperate grab for attention from you. It loud, bright and harsh, which not only describes the visual style of this neon wonderland but also all other elements of what was put into this movie. I hate to say it but it’s a complete failure on all levels. I suggest stopping at the next station.