Terminal

Walking into Vaughn Stein’s Terminal feels a bit like stumbling into a late-night diner at 3:00 AM after one too many espresso martinis. Everything is a little too bright, the shadows are suspiciously deep, and everyone you meet is talking in riddles that sound profound until you actually try to parse them. I watched this on my laptop while waiting for my laundry to finish, and the neon reflections on the washing machine door actually added a 4D layer to the cinematography that the filmmakers probably would have charged extra for.

Released in 2018, Terminal is the kind of movie that feels like a beautiful, expensive fever dream that someone forgot to write a coherent ending for. It’s part of that fascinating late-2010s trend where A-list stars used their burgeoning production power—in this case, Margot Robbie and her LuckyChap Entertainment banner—to fund stylized, mid-budget "vibes" movies that the big studios wouldn't touch. It’s a neon-noir playground that owes a massive debt to Sin City and Alice in Wonderland, and while it never quite reaches the heights of the classics it's mimicking, it’s a fascinating relic of a pre-pandemic era where "cool" was a legitimate substitute for "plot."

A Visual Sugar Rush in a Dark Alley

The film doesn't really have a setting so much as an aesthetic. We’re in an anonymous, rain-slicked city that looks like a cyberpunk fever dream. Here, two hitmen—the grumbling veteran Vince (Dexter Fletcher, who you might know better as the director of Rocketman) and the green, somewhat arrogant Alf (Max Irons)—are waiting for instructions from a mysterious mastermind named Mr. Franklyn. Meanwhile, a terminal teacher named Bill (Simon Pegg) is contemplating his end at a train station, and a waitress named Annie (Margot Robbie) is serving coffee and ominous quips in equal measure.

The cinematography by Christopher Ross (who did stellar work on Yesterday) is the real star here. Every frame is saturated in electric blues, hot pinks, and toxic greens. It’s essentially a 95-minute perfume commercial for a scent that smells like cigarettes and blue raspberry vape juice. If you’re a fan of high-contrast visuals and movies where every light bulb is a colored fluorescent tube, you’re going to have a blast just looking at it. But as the story begins to loop and fold in on itself, you start to realize the "Terminal" in the title might refer to the script’s momentum.

The Mystery of the Missing Mike Myers

The most baffling and delightful element of Terminal isn't the twisting plot—it's Mike Myers. Appearing as a limping, eccentric janitor named Clinton, this was Myers' first significant live-action role in years, and he’s clearly having a different kind of fun than everyone else. Mike Myers’ prosthetics look like they were stolen from a high-school production of Richard III, and his performance is a bizarre mix of his Austin Powers energy and something much darker. It’s the kind of performance that makes you lean forward and ask, "Is he okay? Am I okay?"

Then there’s Margot Robbie. This was filmed right as she was transitioning from "the girl from The Wolf of Wall Street" to "the most powerful producer in Hollywood," and you can see her testing her wings here. She plays Annie with a playful, predatory glee, switching accents and costumes like she’s in a one-woman show. She’s leaning hard into the "femme fatale" trope but adding a layer of Harley Quinn-esque anarchy. Her chemistry with Simon Pegg is surprisingly touching; Pegg brings a grounded, weary sadness to his role that provides the only real emotional heartbeat in a movie that otherwise feels like it was made of plastic and neon.

Why This One Slipped Through the Cracks

Despite the star power, Terminal vanished from theaters faster than a hitman in a fog bank. It made less than a million dollars at the box office, largely because it’s a "style over substance" exercise that arrived just as audiences were starting to get "franchise fatigue" and demanded more from their indie thrillers than just pretty colors. It’s a quintessential "rental" movie—something you discover on a streaming service on a Tuesday night and think, "How have I never heard of this cast being in a movie together?"

The action choreography is decent, but it’s often interrupted by long, theatrical monologues that feel like they were written for the stage. Vaughn Stein is clearly a talented visualist, but the script tries so hard to be clever with its "reveals" that it forgets to make us care about the people involved in them. By the time the final twist arrives involving Katarina Čas and a series of double-crosses, you might find yourself checking your own "terminal" status (or your laundry).

Yet, I can’t help but have a soft spot for it. In an era where every movie is part of a "cinematic universe," there’s something refreshing about a standalone, weird, over-designed failure. It’s a movie that takes big swings, even if most of them are air-balls. It’s a visual treat that serves as a reminder that even the biggest stars in the world sometimes just want to play dress-up in a neon train station for 90 minutes.

Terminal is a triumph of production design and a bit of a muddle everywhere else. It’s worth watching for Margot Robbie’s sheer charisma and the pure, unadulterated weirdness of Mike Myers returning to the screen as a creepy janitor. If you lower your expectations for a tight thriller and treat it as a long-form music video, you’ll find plenty to enjoy in its rain-slicked, neon-lit corners. Just don’t expect to remember the plot by the time you finish your popcorn.