DIRECTED BY Steven Spielberg
STARRING Tom Hanks, Catherine Zeta Jones, Stanley Tucci
US 2004 128 mins.
I, ROBOT ***
DIRECTED BY Alex Proyas
STARRING Will Smith, Bridget Moynahan, Bruce Greenwood
US 2004 114 mins.
I’m one of those people – we’re a fairly rare breed – who love airports, especially big international airports. I’m never disheartened when a flight gets delayed, so long as we don’t have to wait in the aeroplane (that is a nightmare) and can walk around the Departure Lounge, gawping at this and that. ‘This and that’ being of course other passengers, airports being among the all-time great places for people-watching.
The Terminal seems to realise this, at least at first. Among the first images in Steven Spielberg’s new film is a flood of humanity streaming into a big American airport (clearly JFK, though it isn’t named), getting the whole “What is the purpose of your visit?” treatment at Customs. Among them is Viktor Navorski (Tom Hanks), a lone traveller from the fictional Eastern European country of Krakhozia – where the government is overthrown while Viktor is crossing the Atlantic, making his passport invalid and leaving him a man without a country. He’s not allowed into the US – but nor can he be deported, forcing him to literally live in the airport terminal till his status can be sorted out.
We see a lot of Viktor in the subsequent two hours; trouble is, we see very little of that flood of people from the first five minutes. The film vacillates between two genres, neither of which is even the best choice for this material. On the one hand, there’s the kind of descriptive drama Hanks already did (much better) in Cast Away. Where does Viktor sleep? (In a bed made from two rows of airport chairs.) How does he get money for food? (Various schemes, including a machine that gives 25 cents for returned baggage trolleys.) On the other hand, the film goes for fairytale, giving everyone ‘movie’ motivations as opposed to real-life ones. A quirky Indian cleaner thinks Viktor is a CIA spy. A lovelorn baggage handler wants his help to woo the girl behind the Immigration desk.
Spielberg, of course, tends to turn everything into fairytale. That’s his gift, and it’s served him well over the years. But so many interesting things happen in airports – people get flustered and lose their tempers; delayed travellers bond over Burger King and impromptu games of cards – and we don’t see any of that. We don’t even see much of the airport staff: when they turn out en masse to cheer Viktor on in the inevitable crowd-pleasing climax, one’s first reaction is likely to be: ‘Who are these people?’
The film is loosely based on a true story – an Iranian forced to live in Charles de Gaulle Airport for several years – yet mostly flaps around unconvincingly. The narrative lets sub-plots – like the aforementioned lovelorn baggage handler – flare up, then ignores them till they wither away. Many of the big confrontation scenes between Viktor and the airport’s security chief (Stanley Tucci) are woefully low on plausibility; is it really that difficult to find someone who speaks Russian at a major international airport?
Some have called it a comment on America’s new isolationism – the way US airports have become fortresses in the wake of 9/11 – with Viktor as the harried foreigner mistrusted by the authorities, but in fact the film is shamefully condescending towards its hero. Hanks’ performance is grotesque, rolling his eyes ingratiatingly then leaping around like an old maid surprised by a mouse when his pager goes off. His country, Krakhozia, doesn’t even get a capital city, listed as “Krakhozia” on the Departures board. All these foreign place-names sound the same, eh?…
Nothing really works in The Terminal. The fairytale aspect is half-baked, and laid even lower by Catherine Zeta Jones’ usual leaden performance as the love interest (it’s becoming increasingly obvious that Zeta Jones is the new Joan Collins, cold and hollow; her only bearable performance was as a hard-as-nails bitch in Traffic). Long before the end it’s degenerated into lame jokes about Viktor’s accent – “he cheat” coming out as “eat shit” – and a bit where he runs into the wrong toilet. How can you set a story in a place so bursting with humanity and end up with this feeble piece of schmaltz? The mind boggles.
Humanity gets a much better deal in I, Robot, asking the question ‘when does artificial intelligence shade into the real thing?’. Simulation comes in the form of robots, which have become the perfect household accessory in the year 2035: programmed to protect humans, even when it means their own destruction, the metallic helpers have become ubiquitous in the City of the Future (a place where, among other things, self-driving cars are checked into parking lots as if they were coats, and neatly folded up against the wall). They clean up, help with household chores and never commit crimes. They’re also given faces, to make them more human – but of course they’re not. Or are they?
The film’s premise is that robots may be preparing to overthrow their programming and take over, the keys to the mystery being a scientist who’s committed suicide and a robot that apparently has human feelings – not just simulations but actual emotions (even dreams). The cop on the case is Will Smith in top form, an action hero with humour and Attitude (my audience roared when he interrupts a pompous speech with a loud sneeze and the shamefaced apology “Oh I’m sorry, I’m allergic to bullshit”). He also hates robots, and is repeatedly accused of “prejudice” – obviously a loaded term for a black actor, underlined just enough to make the irony apparent.
The film works as a murder mystery and conspiracy thriller, with futuristic detail and thoughtful asides on the fragility of what makes us human. Our hero dotes on his grandma, whose sweet potato pies become an emblem of hand-crafted human endeavour (we get several close-ups of pies in the first 15 minutes); but then it turns out she’s got a robot helping her, and ‘its’ pies taste just as good as hers. Just what is it that human beings have and robots can’t simulate? Trust, perhaps – the secret alliances we seal with a wink. Or just doing irrational things sometimes, choosing the less sensible option for purely emotive reasons.
Alas, the film gets less interesting as it goes on. It’s not really an adaptation of the eponymous Isaac Asimov novel – rumour has it they only bought the rights to the book to protect against lawsuits when the script turned out a little too similar – and not really much of a thriller either. The final twist is lame and the climax disappointing, nor does the plot make a great deal of sense: it’s hard to see how the ‘clues’ our hero gets should’ve led him to discover the truth. In the end what we’re left with is charismatic Smith and some well-designed visuals, like the hundreds of robots standing in serried ranks or the ‘US Robotics’ corporate headquarters, with its great towering spaces.
I, Robot at its best can’t begin to match another recent film on the subject of What Makes Us Human – a film that concluded the answer was Mortality, and our awareness of Time passing. That film was the hugely underrated A.I. (2001), directed of course by Steven Spielberg. But now the baton has been passed to the less proficient Alex Proyas, and Spielberg is stuck making crap like The Terminal. All a bit depressing, really.
NEW DVD RELEASES
Here’s our regular look at some of the more intriguing titles released on DVD in the US and UK over the past few weeks (most are also out on VHS).
Some of these may be available to rent from local video clubs, or you can always order over the Internet: dozens of suppliers, but http://www.amazon.com (for US) and http://www.sendit.com (for UK) are among the most reliable, if not necessarily the cheapest. Note that US discs are ‘Region 1’, and require a multi-region player.
NEW FILMS
SUPER SIZE ME: Morgan Spurlock ate nothing but McDonalds for 30 days, just to see what would happen – then made this documentary about the alarming results. Weird! Includes director’s commentary and an interview with Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation. [US]
ANGELS IN AMERICA: Not quite a film but a 6-hour TV mini-series – and what a cast! Al Pacino, Meryl Streep and Emma Thompson lead the way in hugely acclaimed adaptation of hit Broadway play: angels, Mormons, gay couples and more. [US]
ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND: The year’s best Hollywood film, including commentary by director and writer, deleted scenes and all the usual extras. [US/UK]
OLD FILMS
STAR WARS TRILOGY: Impossible to ignore (believe me, we tried), it’s the DVD event of the year: Star Wars (1977), The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983), plus an insane amount of documentaries and special features – all for about £30 or $40 (plus shipping). A must-have. [US/UK]
JEAN RENOIR’S THEATRE TRILOGY (1952-56): Speaking of trilogies … Actually three unrelated films – The Golden Coach, French Cancan (a masterpiece) and Elena and Her Men – all directed by Jean Renoir and set in a theatrical milieu. Great stuff with plentiful bonus features from those nice people at the Criterion Collection. [US]
EARLY SUMMER (1951): Criterion again, with this classic family drama from director Yasujiro Ozu (increasingly well-represented on DVD); includes audio commentary and Ozu’s Films From Behind the Scenes documentary. [US]
LA KERMESSE HEROIQUE (1935): It’s a good week for old foreign flicks … Sublimely elegant French comedy with visuals based on 17th-century Flemish painters (!). [UK]
ALFRED HITCHCOCK SIGNATURE COLLECTION: Nine films for $68 plus shipping! What can you say? Highlights include North By Northwest (1959) and a 2-disc Special Edition of Strangers on a Train (1951). [US]
FREAKS (1932): “One of us, one of us…” Still-shocking (though also poignant) horror with real-life ‘freaks’. Bonus features include 3 alternate endings – obviously a nightmare for the Marketing Department… [US]
DOCTOR WHO: GHOST LIGHT (1989): Time-travel, in every sense. [UK]
