I'm not shocked that this movie got panned the way it did, but I'm not sure why it was so unceremoniously dumped onto VOD almost immediately other than the poor reviews because I think this would've been a GREAT theater movie, and frankly I really enjoyed watching it. It's on Hulu these days and if any of the below sounds appealing - or at least stimulating, positively or negatively - I give this seven bags of popcorn, two extra butter.


Someone had the bright idea to weld Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels to The Seventh Seal and pretend it was directed by Nicolas Winding-Refn had he been sat in The Architect's chair and handed the keys to The Matrix (the augmented reality program, not the film franchise). I can see why this movie would be so divisive, considering it gives so much of itself away early on and needlessly complicates itself with a wonky timeline. Terminal overflows with confidence at every turn, from its ludicrous stylized lighting to its peak-Ritchie dialogue quirks to its Nolanesque fascination with the power of time to manipulate an audience.

At 90 minutes, Terminal never stops imagining itself to be the greatest achievement in film, and that allows for a compellingly brisk watch. At one point it's a Jarmuschian meditation on whether the joy of life is worth the price of death, at another it's practically a video game adaptation of The Game if Shrek were portrayed via full motion video and there was zero action.

If you like your movies pointed but pointless, an overdose on the idea that a series of photographs displayed concurrently at a rate that resembles actual motion is as much a delivery device for lucid dreams as any relatable reality, Terminal is your fucking jam. If you want a big idea, you're not going to get it. If the ending feels like the beginnings of a huge franchise here, sorry, Terminal isn't going to be Margot Robbie's John Wick. Instead, it's more like her Man on Fire as imagined by Harley Quinzel in a fever dream the first night after The Joker left her for dead for the first time. These are the sorts of huge swing-and-misses I think more people should be salivating over, not just because the miss part is wrong but because everyone involved with this stepped up to the plate and swung as hard as they could at every single pitch, unconcerned with whether making contact was the point.



~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz

But I can respect a filmmaker daring to dream big. At the very least the film is compelling enough for an authentic reaction, either positive or negative.

You'd think with the amount of money involved with cinema production (film and TV) that more series and movies would just throw caution to the wind and make art for art's sake, even if no one's looking.

But then again, Aronovsky made Mother which was an ambitious movie which no one went to see and while Legion seemed like it was innovative, it never did big numbers (to my knowledge).

Maybe the day for big-budget Capital-A art movies is over.

<--- Me when my head hits the pillow

>But I can respect a filmmaker daring to dream big. At the
>very least the film is compelling enough for an authentic
>reaction, either positive or negative.

I agree here. Like I wrote, everyone here is Chris Davis at the plate, hacking away at every opportunity looking to hit a home run. Robbie can flip from the worst to the best actress in the world as quickly as one line read to the next, and the photography will be wholly original one moment than hacky and clichéd in a different shot of the same scene. It makes for a really brisk watch that keeps you on your toes, but if the bad doesn't slot into whatever your definition of schlock is I can see it being way too much.

>You'd think with the amount of money involved with cinema
>production (film and TV) that more series and movies would
>just throw caution to the wind and make art for art's sake,
>even if no one's looking.


The sad thing about this one is that they filmed it in 2016, and Robbie was still mostly seen as a supporting actress at that point, then Suicide Squad tanked and it got crushed. Without I, Tonya I think it would've been one of those movies that just got passed around in legal rights battles forever and never actually come out.


>But then again, Aronovsky made Mother which was an ambitious
>movie which no one went to see and while Legion seemed like it
>was innovative, it never did big numbers (to my knowledge).
>
>Maybe the day for big-budget Capital-A art movies is over.


I just don't think this was an art movie, unless Sin City or Snatch were art movies. I'm also not sure it had that big of a budget; they only took a month to shoot it, in Budapest, and it almost entirely takes place on 4 or 5 digital sets. It looks expensive at a glance but I'd bet it was a pretty cheap movie to put out all things told, especially with Robbie as the EP as well.

I guess there's a feeling of a desire to be art, and maybe that's part of why I can't stop looking for places to read or talk about it (...nobody likes this movie...) but there are so many empty calories here (that I'm gambling everyone involved was very conscious of) that I think all this movie really wanted to be was a pastiche of everything that was cool about British independent cinema in the early 2000s and Scandinavian / Korean independent cinema in the early 2010s with the primary goal being to have a good time and make something that feels singular, even if it ultimately just reminds you of 10 or 12 other, (mostly) better movies.


~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz

>But I can respect a filmmaker daring to dream big. At the
>very least the film is compelling enough for an authentic
>reaction, either positive or negative.

I agree here. Like I wrote, everyone here is Chris Davis at the plate, hacking away at every opportunity looking to hit a home run. Robbie can flip from the worst to the best actress in the world as quickly as one line read to the next, and the photography will be wholly original one moment than hacky and clichéd in a different shot of the same scene. It makes for a really brisk watch that keeps you on your toes, but if the bad doesn't slot into whatever your definition of schlock is I can see it being way too much.

>You'd think with the amount of money involved with cinema
>production (film and TV) that more series and movies would
>just throw caution to the wind and make art for art's sake,
>even if no one's looking.


The sad thing about this one is that they filmed it in 2016, and Robbie was still mostly seen as a supporting actress at that point, then Suicide Squad tanked and it got crushed. Without I, Tonya I think it would've been one of those movies that just got passed around in legal rights battles forever and never actually come out.


>But then again, Aronovsky made Mother which was an ambitious
>movie which no one went to see and while Legion seemed like it
>was innovative, it never did big numbers (to my knowledge).
>
>Maybe the day for big-budget Capital-A art movies is over.


I just don't think this was an art movie, unless Sin City or Snatch were art movies. I'm also not sure it had that big of a budget; they only took a month to shoot it, in Budapest, and it almost entirely takes place on 4 or 5 digital sets. It looks expensive at a glance but I'd bet it was a pretty cheap movie to put out all things told, especially with Robbie as the EP as well.

I guess there's a feeling of a desire to be art, and maybe that's part of why I can't stop looking for places to read or talk about it (...nobody likes this movie...) but there are so many empty calories here (that I'm gambling everyone involved was very conscious of) that I think all this movie really wanted to be was a pastiche of everything that was cool about British independent cinema in the early 2000s and Scandinavian / Korean independent cinema in the early 2010s with the primary goal being to have a good time and make something that feels singular, even if it ultimately just reminds you of 10 or 12 other, (mostly) better movies.


~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz