Terminal - Style over substance

The trailer to 'Terminal' looked damn good, but don't they all?  Hover, seeing as it depicted Margot Robbie (hot off the heels of her excellent performances in 'Suicide Squad' and 'I, Tonya') as some sort of 'femme fatale' (not to mention a fair few other recognisable actors) in a weirdly, futuristic neon world full of gangsters, I thought how could this be bad?  I guess it isn't bad.  It's just not as good is it should have been - which sometimes can be worse than being plain awful.

Simon Pegg plays a man dying of a terminal disease, so he stops off one night at a café where Margot Robbie works as an all-night waitress.  There they mull over the meaning of life (and death!), all the time the narrative is interspersed with Dexter Fletcher and understudy as a couple of gangster hitmen awaiting orders on their next job.  These two tales sort of merge in the end and everything is tied up in a nice - if slightly unbelievable - kind of way.  However, it's the 'getting there' process that's such a mess.

Yes, I've decided that if there's a word that sums up this film it's 'messy.' The narrative structure bounces all over the place making it just about possible to follow without having to look up the meaning on the internet.  The characters talk to each other and kind of ramble on in sudo-philosophical ways, trying to sound clever and make you - the viewer - think.  But it's not enough.  It's like the film-makers had a great idea, but couldn't quite seem to pull it off.

Yes, the neon and world-building is visually stunning.  It looks great to watch and you get the feeling that this setting really is a place out of time.  But you need more than just visual flare.  The story just drags.  There are a few twists here and there which are supposed to be deep and shocking.  However, I saw most of them coming and those I didn't see I just didn't care about or didn't believe would really happen.

Ultimately, 'Terminal' is an example of how you can take as many great actors as you like and put them together, but just having them on the same cast list doesn't mean the film will be any good.  You also need a good story to go with it.  I've noticed that this film didn't stay in the cinema for long and was quickly shunted onto that new 'straight-to-video-style' way we watch movies, i.e. online streaming services.  I'm sure some people will find it all really deep and meaningful, just not me.  Sadly average.  I think I should have just stuck to watching the trailer.

5/10 a hard trek, a bit like unicycling to Mordor and back