'Terminal' an interminably dull neo-noir crime non-thriller

<h3 class="briefHead">"Terminal" - ★ ½</h3>

More like "Interminable."

The cold, calculating, confounding neo-noir thriller "Terminal" lavishes more attention on its visually enticing, retro production designs - Kubrickian symmetry mixed with saturated colors adorning German Expressionistic angles - than on its ultrathin characters starving for nutritious dialogue and a digestible plot.

The provocative casting of Margot Robbie, Simon Pegg and Mike Myers might pique initial curiosity about this lurid, Cronenbergian revenge tale, but 20 minutes into its groaner prattle and inaccessible characters, the shoot-everybody finale of "Reservoir Dogs" would be a welcome relief.

Pegg plays Bill, a scraggly aging English teacher whose cancer has him considering pulling a Dr. Kevorkian just to speed things up. He meets the right woman for the job, Annie (Robbie), a seductive femme fatale with glowing green eyes and a sardonic grin.

The setting takes place mostly in what appears to be a 1940s-era train station. Two hit guys named Alfred and Vince (Max Irons and Dexter Fletcher) exchange embarrassingly juvenile lines as they await their next assignments.

Neither one realizes that each has been assigned to kill the other by a mysterious master villain whose voice has been garbled on vintage telephones.

Vaughn Stein, making his inauspicious feature directorial debut, writes a screenplay riddled with inane, lofty-sounding dialogue. "There are more ways to end your life than there are ways to live your life!" Annie opines.

Stein sprinkles his script with ker-thunking cliches. ("This is all a game to you, isn't it?" Bill bellows.) He pumps in references from other works (such as "Alice Through the Looking Glass" and even "The Lion King") as if alluding to better writing would enhance his own.

Robbie, a versatile and talented star as evidenced by her Oscar-nominated work in "I, Tonya," struggles to give her blank performance depth and texture, but Stein gives the actress so little to work with, even she can do little more than pose pretty in pink, or white, or black.

"Who says mystery is a lost art?" intones the unseen puppet master.

Stein does. And he's got the movie to prove it.

<b>Starring:</b> Margot Robbie, Simon Pegg, Mike Myers, Dexter Fletcher, Max Irons

<b>Directed by:</b> Vaughn Stein

<b>Other:</b> An RLJ Entertainment release. At the Woodridge Theater. Not rated, but contains violence, foul language, sexual situations. 90 minutes