Director: Vaughn Stein
Starring: Margot Robbie, Simon Pegg, Mike Myers
Year: 2018
When watching a twisting storyline, I like to be surprised, I want to be surprised, I don’t choose to unravel the mystery before the characters do, because where’s the fun in that? I can watch an M. Night movie and not care to figure out the trick, to get to the truth before others do, to convince myself that I’m more intelligent that the director. But I will say, sometimes it’s obvious, sometimes it can’t be helped, and if I uncover all the secrets and guess at all the answers before I really should it is in no way my own fault. I assumed much about the plot of this film early on, and was extremely disappointed when I ended up being right. It wasn’t clever, wasn’t hidden, wasn’t smart, and was in no way engaging; Terminal was dead on arrival, and we find that out way too soon.
In the gritty, neon underworld of a dark and lonely, semi-dystopic British city, assassins walk the slick, black streets like window shoppers out for a leisurely stroll. Death lies around every corner and life seems fleeting; a utopia for professional killers and the employers who make use of their empty souls. Annie wants to rise up the ranks, wants to take the assassin’s creed, wants to work exclusively for the town’s big wig richy sicko, Mr. Franklyn, but first she’ll have to prove her worth. So begins an elaborate scheme to kill the competition, take the cash, and win the day, all while dodging her own demise. Annie will meet a dying man called Bill, a young stud named Alfred, a wizened vet who goes by Vince, and they will all end up at the end of the line looking down the barrel of a gun before the wicked web is weaved.
That summary about tells it; there’s a whole lot of fluff, not much substance. The film is beautiful in a Brazil sort of way, dazzling with a Blade Runner vibe, quirky like its predecessor Snatch, but never good in any tangible way. Those movies are wacky yet cool, hard to swallow yet excellent, and that’s something Terminal couldn’t conjure. Like Free Fire, you want to enjoy it because it is pure, ridiculous, bloody entertainment. The problem is that, unlike silly action/comedy flicks that at least give you something, this assassin cliche is rather pointless and fails to give audiences anything. It’s predictable, unoriginal, boring, and totally unnecessary; the exact opposite of what its bright lights try to trick us into believing. The acting is good, I’ll give it that, Robbie and Pegg and the thugs were all interesting and believable, but the setting they were placed in was just so amateur and thoughtless that they never had a chance to shine through the gloom. A mistake was made, an idea was left to wander, a plot completely lost its mind, and the result is something you don’t want to see.
My rating: ☆ ☆