Extraordinary Measures is one of those movies you don’t see very often. That’s because they’re usually on telly at around 2pm on a weekday, while us normals are resenting?the turd-headed followers who watch such weekday dross.
It’s all pretty underwhelming stuff, all smiles from the physically crippled and cemented frowns from the theatrically crippled; it’s almost soap opera material. That’s probably because this is CBS’s first foray into the features. It marks a sly move on their part: poor cinemagoers were denied the opportunity to change the channel.
But don’t worry, it’s all based on a harrowing true story about a man’s struggle to cure his children’s terminal disease.?You’ll feel so emotionally blackmailed that you’ll convince yourself it was good.
Harrison Ford surrenders himself to mediocrity, coming across wearier than any interview he’s ever given. You almost forget that he had charisma once, and a chin that doesn’t resemble Foghorn Leghorn‘s. As Doctor Stonehill, he plays a scientist who thinks he’s cracked the cure for the improbably named Pompe Disease.
Competing with Ford on the puffing challenge is Brendan Fraser. You almost forget that he used to be an attractive rogue once, and didn’t have a face that looked like it is in a state of perpetual allergy reaction. Fraser and Ford stand around and puff their cheeks, exhausting air from their gums as if they run the risk of over inflating. Fraser at least comes out the better of the two, earnest, noble but he’s been driving in this gear for too long now, hardly making for an enthralling screen presence.
The children suffer greatly. Not from Eviscerated Roman City disease but from Annoying Children in Movies syndrome. They’re a little too happy, a little too quirky; a little too much of syrupy cinematic magic. Perhaps that’s why Ford looks so unhappy all the time. Perhaps that’s why the pharmaceutical giants are look so sadistically happy to squish the hopes of saving these poor little blighter’s lives.
If anything, the film at least reveals an interesting and overlooked side to the development of drugs, even if it does paint the corporate fat cats as ‘tache twirling scoundrels. Sure, it’s a tricky world that we’ve barely seen, but the corporation here seems to just want the whole thing to fail, which hardly makes for logic.
But this is mainly left aside for rousing speeches. ‘I’m a scientist, I don’t care about money!’, and other ho-hum to draw thick lines around the good guys, while anyone who may oppose might as well drip Vaseline to emphasise their overtly slimy exterior.
The broad brushstrokes become tiresome, everything too scripted and no real grit or hardship felt. Worse of all, you never emphasise with the family’s plight, or whether the children live or die. The latter is really a fatal floor. Sure, children are annoying, but dying children is the simplest of heart-string pullers, and this can’t even function on that simple emotional level.
It’s pretty grim stuff. As horrible, cynical and narcissistic as we are here at hecklerspray, we’re usually pretty much against children dying. Except Justin Bieber. He could die and we still wouldn’t be satisfied.
‘Spray Rating: 1.5/5
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