Why So Blu?

The Terminal (Blu-ray Review)

It’s a double whammy of sorts with TWO Steven Spielberg films being released on Blu-ray stateside for the first time. Coming up we will be reviewing The Terminal starring Tom Hanks and Catherine Zeta-Jones and featuring an all-star ensemble cast with the likes of Diego Luna, Zoe Saldana, and more. I’m sure we all have airport horror stories but they compare to Hanks’ tale of being a citizen without a country? We shall see. 

 

Film 

I remember watching the trailer to The Terminal like ten years ago and thinking it looked horrible. When I saw that Steven Spielberg had directed it I was in even more shock, because we were riding high from his previous films that had recently come out like: Minority Report, Catch Me If You Can, and A.I. What The Terminal did have were some powerhouse leads like Tom Hanks and Catherine Zeta-Jones. It couldn’t be all bad, right? Fast forward ten years and I have just watched The Terminal on Blu-ray and I’m happy to say that The Terminal is nowhere near the train wreck the marketing made it out to be. Is it a great film? No. It’s not all bad either. Let’s dig in deeper.

Viktor Navorski (Tom Hanks) is on an international flight to New York from his native Krakozhia (a fictitious country for the purposes of this film, FYI). The bad news for Viktor is that his country is in the midst of a revolution and the U.S. has restricted travel to and from the conutry. This all happened right as Viktor was entering U.S. customs. Frank Dixon (Stanley Tucci) is the head of homeland security/customs of that particular airport and has let poor Viktor know the unfortunate predicament he is now in. For the time being, Viktor must stay in the international terminal of the airport, cannot leave, and has to surrender his passport.

It sounds easy enough but Viktor cannot speak English, so those traditional lines of communication are ineffective, as he no way of sorting through the mess he’s in. He doesn’t know what’s going on his country to begin with! Hijinx will surely ensue as Viktor meets people, gets into adventures, and finds redemption in the one woman he knows he can never have…or something similar. The Terminal is not a great or very good film. It’s more than competently directed by Spielberg but the real meat and potatoes of it is lacking.

Oh, did I mention that Catherine Zeta-Jones is also in the film? I didn’t? That’s because she’s only in the film for like 10 minutes. In fact, her character isn’t even introduced until almost the first hour of the feature. The trailer led me to believe that she was the prospective actress. Shame on you advertising, for shame! Actually, looking back at it, it’s of no real importance. Her character, Amelia, is a flight attendant at the international terminal Viktor is stuck in. They develop a sort of rapport through there interactions (at this point Viktor’s been squatting at the airport for almost a year) and he believes that he is falling in love with her. Amelia, for her part, has issues of her own. She’s having an affair with a married man. Yeah, she’s a bad girl.

Now you may be asking yourself then why would I be giving The Terminal a 3-star? Well, the film is entertaining and I found Hanks’ performance endearing as I did Stanley Tucci, who is not a bad person but works his way up to gradually becoming one. The stellar supporting cast featuring Diego Luna, Zoe Zaldana, Kumar Pallana, Chi McBride, among others really pulled the film together for me. Don’t get me wrong; I would still consider The Terminal a Steven Spielberg misfire but the style over substance aspect of it really shines on. I really liked the aesthetics of the film and that terminal rocks. I’d so have a meal and drink there – maybe get my shopping on.  I do think that the film fails towards the end as it switches gears and becomes really contrived, sentimental, and manipulative. It had no reason to given it’s length and the amount of time we had already spent with certain characters. Granted, the one character we hardly knew was actually the character that wasn’t really needed. I’ll let you guys figure out who that was.

 

Video 

Encoding: AVC MPEG-4

Resolution: 1080p

Aspect Ratio: 1:85

Clarity/Detail: The Terminal on Blu-ray is surprisingly clear and just as like Catch Me If You Can was one of the Spielberg’s first non-action films that carried instances of lens flares throughout. The contrast levels are slightly boosted but sharpness levels remain steady. Softness creeps in just a tad.

Depth: Since the real character of the film is the actual setting of the terminal this Blu-ray presentation does do a good job of bringing a realistic quality to the overall film.

Black Levels: Black levels are spot-on and even during shots of obvious CGI never crush.

Color Reproduction: The color palette is very colorful and bright. Banding was never an issue.

Flesh Tones: Everyone looks nice and healthy. Flesh tones look as natural as can be.

Noise/Artifacts: Noise and artifacts were kept to a minimum.

 

Audio 

Audio Format(s): English DTS-HD-Master Audio 5.1, French Dolby Digital 5.1, Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Digital Portuguese 5.1

Subtitles: English, English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese

Dynamics: The lossless soundtrack to The Terminal is a very lively one. It’s obviously a very busy place and you have tons of activity all around. It’s handled adequately

Low Frequency Extension: The LFE makes its presence felt on a couple of occasions and these jut happen to be the ones where an airplane or two are involved.

Surround Sound Presentation: The surround sound channels do keep things moving along. You can hear people in the background and also through the PA system as flights updates are continuously being broadcast.

Dialogue Reproduction: Dialogue levels are clean, clear and crisp.

Extras 

The Terminal on Blu-ray has a very nice supplemental package included. The only things we are missing are deleted scenes and an audio commentary but if you know Spielberg’s stance of commentaries then you will be waiting a LONG time for one. Let us see what we have.

• Booking the Flight: The Script, the Story, (HD, 8:06) – Steven Spielberg talks about the genesis of the story and what led him to the project. It was more of a homework assignment since he had a few scripts that he had to read on a weekend and The Terminal‘s script rose to the top of the heap.
• Waiting for the Flight: Building the Terminal (HD, 12:19) – A very informative production design featurette with Alex McDowell and Steven Spielberg and what went into building the giant terminal sets. Contrary to what you are seeing on screen the sets are 100% manufactured and there was no filming at any actual terminal for interior shots. It is a very cool featurette.
• Boarding: The People of The Terminal: Tom Hanks is “Viktor” – Catherine Zeta-Jones is “Amelia” – Viktor’s World (HD, 31:48) – Here’s a series of interviews – the first is with Tom Hanks as he talks about his character followed by Catherine Zeta-Jones as she talks about her character and there’s “Viktor’s World,” which is the terminal that is a character unto itself.
• Take Off: The Making of The Terminal (HD, 17:13) – This is your standard fluff making-of featurette where everyone talks about what a great joy working with everyone was. It’s pretty stock.
• In Flight Service: The Music of The Terminal (HD, 5:53) – John Williams and Steven Spielberg talk about the music score and what went into the various musical cues and tone of the film.
• Landing: Airport Stories (HD, 5:41) – The cast talk about their “airport stories” of what they went through during filming.
• Photo Gallery (HD) – A photo gallery featuring high definition stills of the film.
• Theatrical Trailer 1 (HD, 2:31) – Here’s the long and mediocre trailer for the film presented in high definition.
• Theatrical Trailer 2 (HD, 1:24) – Here’s the shorter and still mediocre trailer for the film presented in high definition.

 

Summary 

The Terminal is not as awful as the marketing materials made it out to be but it’s nowhere near the top of Spielberg’s arsenal of films. It’s a hyper-stylized fantasy that does what it can with the material and it works in parts and fails at others. In the end it’s a pretty harmless film. The video and audio specs are above average and, surprisingly, so are the extras. Granted, if you’re a Steven Spielberg fan or completist you’ll want to add it to your Blu-ray collection. If not, then it’s definitely worth a rental.

 

 

Order The Terminal on Blu-ray!