Soundstagey

I don't have a problem with the CGI-- it's the overall production design and writing that destroys the suspension of disbelief. Most interior shots are lit with red and blue gels rather than trying for a torch/candle-lit look. Interior shots look extremely "soundstagey" in a bad sense of the word.

In uncritical homage to the heyday of Hollywood musicals, Branagh sets the action in a kind of soundstagey Oxbridge (wittily designed by Tim Harvey) and at crucial moments has his cast spin on their heels and croon American songbook standards by Porter, Kern, Gershwin and company instead of launching into sonnets and masques.

An airless debut that says much about its writer-director's cultural diet and little about anything else in the world, Vaughn Stein's Terminal blends tropes from several sorts of crime flicks into a soundstagey affair that's more brittle than hard-boiled.

This remake injects some contemporary misfortune (humans despoil the water, we're told). It also packs on another 52 minutes and three new songs, trades zany for demure and swaps vast animated land- and seascapes for soundstagey sets and screensavery imagery.