The Terminal (starring Tom Hanks)

I'm not sure that 'The Terminal' would really have appealed to me based on the reviews, which were decidedly mixed. Indeed, I'm not sure that I would even have heard of it, were it not for my older son - who was working abroad on a ship at the time - happened to see it, and told us it was brilliant.

So I put it on my wishlist, and received it for Christmas.

And yes, if you happen to spot the date of this review, we did indeed watch it on Christmas Day. Not that we were absolutely raring to take the film out of its wrapper and put it in the DVD player - it was more to give us something to do. We were all feeling a bit low, on our first Christmas without our older so at home.

What a wonderful movie it was, too. Tom Hanks is brilliant as Victor, the lost foreigner stuck in JFK airport. Due to a complex political situation that erupted after he left his home country, he is unable to enter the USA, but also is unable to fly back. So he is stuck in the airport for an unspecified length of time...

I have to admit that the plot is minimal, and becomes increasingly unlikely during the latter part of the film. But the humour is wonderful - much of it subtle, most of it very cleverly done. We all found ourselves enjoying it very much; I would recommend it to anyone.

I'm not usually a huge fan of extras, but we were all interested to know whether the real JFK airport was used for the filming... and found ourselves fascinated by the explanations, and other extras. If you like this kind of thing, make sure that you get an edition with extras on it.

'The Terminal' is rated 12 in the UK, PG-13 in the USA, due to some moderate bad language - though not inappropriate, given the situation - and some implied sexual references. Nothing extreme, however.

Review copyright Sue's DVD Reviews