Strange, fantastic lives get entangled in Robbie’s ‘Terminal’

A stylish retro-noir starring and produced by Academy Award nominee Margot Robbie, “Terminal” riffs on everything from Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland” to Frank Miller’s “Sin City” films.

Shot in Hungary and set within an enclosed urban area known as the Precinct, the film is lit by neon signs and begins when a blonde dressed in red (Robbie) plans to make two hit men kill one another in order that she might work for a Mr. Big known as Mr. Franklin.

At the same time, a former English teacher named Bill (Simon Pegg), who is dying of cancer, waits for a train at the End of the Line Cafe, where he meets a waitress named Annie (also Robbie), and the two engage in a game of sophisticated verbal catand-mouse. She claims coyly to have “an unquenchable blood lust for darkness and depravity.”

While waiting for the train on the platform, Bill had earlier met the “night supervisor,” aka the station cleaner (Mike Myers), an old man who asks a lot of questions. Meanwhile, father-son-type hit men Vincent (Dexter Fletcher) and Alfie (Max Irons) wait in a fleabag hotel for their instructions from Mr. Franklin. They also frequent

the cafe and meet Annie, who gets on Vincent’s nerves and takes a romantic interest in Alfie.

“Terminal” is a strange beast, a polychromatic film noir set in a self-contained world resembling any number of 1980s-era music videos. First-time feature director Vaughn Stein, who also wrote the script, is a torrent of influences without much in the way of an original idea.

But the film offers Robbie a great femme fatale showcase a la “Atomic Blonde” or “Red Sparrow,” getting to play delightfully with the screenplay’s colorful Carrolland Dylan Thomas-quoting dialogue and wear sexy noir ensembles, a variety of wigs and makeup, including navy blue lipstick, and her closeups are the glamorous stuff of old Marlene Dietrich films. Music by Tony Clarke and Rupert Gregson-Williams is reminiscent of James Bond films. A wildly mixed bag, “Terminal” is worth a look.