Friday, 2 November 2018

Terminal (2018)

Madness and mayhem are above all, creative. Wrap those up in a coffin made of neon, dirt, blood and lies and you've got the recipe for a thriller that'll keep you guessing while you think you're so clever.

Terminal follows a collection of characters as their stories unravel around a mysterious train station. Shrouded in neon and shadows, two money-hungry assassins, a dying english teacher, a cryptic, crippled janitor, a criminal mastermind and a naughty blonde bombshell all become intertwined in the same spider's web, but who is the spider and who is the fly?

Throughout Terminal, the most obvious element is the incredible attention to mise-en-scène; the lighting, the sets, the choreography, the framing, all of these individual parts have been meticulously crafted in order to combine the grimy nature of an old train station whilst having the clean, crisp use of metallic environments reflecting bright neon colour combinations. Constantly, whilst paying attention to the delightfully mad characters, you're lost in the vibrancy of the lights bouncing off their skin, creating an almost otherworldly feeling, especially for the character of Annie (Margot Robbie) whose constant references to Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and uneasy familiarity with death turns a beautiful blonde woman into the picture of sadism, just by smirking in the right light.

The performances in Terminal are mostly well done. There are a lot of simple characters that fill a purpose and may have more depth than when first encountered but upon coming to the end of their story, have ticked the box they were there for. Characters like Vince (Dexter Fletcher) and Alfred (Max Irons) whose sole purpose is to present images of slapstick characters whose morality of murder is less than desirable, this creating a conflict in the audience's mind of humour against "decent human beings". This kind of character conflict is brought up once again with Bill (Simon Pegg) who throughout the story, we feel pity for and are confused as to how this very realistic character is surviving amongst all the ridiculousness and sadistic humanity that surrounds him, that is until his dark past is revealed and to our disgust, it makes us more comfortable. 

The only aspect about the performances in Terminal that, considering nearly everyone in the film is British, I'm not fond of Margot Robbie's accent. Her native Australian consistently slips through, combining with her less than satisfactory English accent to form some sort of Dick Van Dyke meets New Zealand conglomeration. I feel that if Robbie had performed the part in her much more successful American accent, the part still would've fit. This becomes more than apparent when compared to Mike Myer's performance in the film, utilising both his Cockney and more Middle-class accents to brilliant endings. Of course this could be down to a number of reasons; director's insistence, lack of time, lack of experience with the accent, etc.

The most intriguing part of Terminal was that, as someone who consistently tries to predict what's going to happen as I watch, I found some elements were easily discovered whilst others came completely out of the blue but still had grounding within the story. Pieces like the reveal of Mike Myers secondary character, which was almost immediately seen by myself and quite a few of the others I watched it with. It tricks into believing that "Oh this twist is so simple, I'm bored now" but before it can even hint of ending there, another, far more well-hidden one is revealed and you start to question yourself, try to pick apart what you've been examining once again. The audience is consistently flicking between knowing exactly what is happening and being completely lost, never quite balancing on the point of perfect cinematic mystery but I feel this method makes it all the more terrifying; knowing you were right all along but there's so much more you didn't even see.

Altogether, Terminal provides a fantastic example of mise-en-scène, character secrecy and how to warp mystery and fear into one. Truly a very fun watch for anyone with a little sadism hidden inside.

4/5 - Curiouser and curiouser.


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