Any movie critic can tell you what a newly released DVD is about & spoil the ending for you. I plan to ruin your entire DVD watching experience by highlighting it's flaws, it's missteps, it's examples of poor editing, casting, and point out the ridiculous holes in the plot. If you're cynical, you'll appreciate this valuable service I'm providing. If you're easily impressed, then don't say I didn't warn you.  - Mean Jean

This movie is spectacular and stunning for a few reasons. One, how could such a fine director turn out something this weak & ridiculous? Two, how did he manage to recruit such excellent actors to star in this? Clearly Hollywood is impressed by names, not quality. This is no surprise, although the movie was full of them. 

Some of the astonishing ideas this flick depicts include a New York without translators. Maybe the U.N. was closed for cleaning that year. Good thing non- English speaking visitors can learn a foreign language from comparing printed material. I guess we can all learn German from English side by side with Rammstein lyrics, cool! 

The villain of the movie, the sinister Mr. Whatshisface embarks on the rollercoaster thrill ride® handed down to him by management: keep Tom Hanks captive and it's all John Ashcroft's fault. He is the new trendy villain of the mainstream media. Unfortunately, the real guy "The Terminal" is based on has never been in the U.S. In fact, he entered Charles de Gaulle airport in 1988. His landing in this airport on that date has the unusual distinctive of not only being outside of America, hence not under Federal Homeland Security initiatives, but at a time in history that is well before Ashcroft even had a Homeland Security Bureau at all, those being set in place in the early 2000's in response to an unprovoked war being declared against & waged on U.S. soil. 

What a movie they could have made! The real Terminal guy still sits in the Parisian terminal, 16 full years after he landed. Rather than criticize a fluff piece of a movie that is too stupid to be funny, too sinister in its implications to be entertaining, I'll tell you about Mehran Karimi Nasseri, the Iranian refugee that would love to move to the USA or Canada, should his voluntary imprisonment in Paris ever end. 

France, the heart of the anti USA center of operations, where many irrelevant celebrities deceptively promised to move if W. were reelected, is where this movie should have been set in. The real hero, Mehran, started his trip optimistically, trying to travel from Belgium to England via Paris. Somewhere along the way he lost his papers which declared that he was an Iranian refugee. Iran even confirmed that he had been expelled from that country in the 1970's. But typical of France to ignore the truth and stick to the popular sentiment or ideology of the day, they denied him the ability to leave the airport. At one point, Belgium 'helpfully' offered to give him his original refugee papers, but only if he showed up in person to claim them, even though he's not allowed into that country at all, making that comically difficult. Wouldn't this have made a much better, more funny & engaging movie?

Somehow he obtained a lawyer, probably not from a cash under the table job in the airport as a construction worker, though. His lawyer got him paperwork which would have freed him to live in France and legally travel. He refuses to, however, convinced that he has no official identity, therefore he'll be targeted for assassination if he ever ventures outside of France(?) Many think that the effects of living basically institutionalized for the past 16 years has made him unable to function outside of the airport at all, and has led to his failing mental health. DreamWorks paid him boatloads of money for the rights to his story (although they didn't even make his story at all) but since he has no bank account, he has no way to access any of the checks they sent his lawyer on his behalf. 

Rent this movie if you like the stars, or if you like the media's relentless depictions of John Ashcroft as your enemy, even though he had nothing to do with any of the boneheaded decisions of the real life terminal dude or the Charles de Gaulle airport. 

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