EXTRAORDINARY MEASURES
RYAN: Extraordinary Measures stars Harrison Ford and Brendan Fraser and is based on a true story. And a book.
CAROLINE: It’s the first feature from the newly formed CBS Films, and it feels more like an ABC After School Special. Someone forgot to tell CBS they’re making movies now, not TV.
RYAN: It’s seriously the most boring movie I can remember seeing in a very long time.
CAROLINE: It was completely uninspired. I know it’s based on a real family, and maybe their story is compelling; but the movie version sure isn’t. It’s just another movie about a parent with sick kids looking for a cure.
RYAN: Only this one’s not a weeper. It’s like they took their real-life story and thought, “Wow, it was was so dramatic what we went through. I bet Keri Russell could play me in a movie version!” But then it didn’t translate.
CAROLINE: The main problem is the weak script. The characters felt underdeveloped and I never really cared about the Crowley family’s plight. I wasn’t emotionally engaged.
RYAN: It wasn’t dramatic enough. I kept waiting for the titular extraordinary measures to take place, but they never did.
CAROLINE: I think the extraordinary measures were the fact that Mr. Crowley left his job to frantically raise money to fight his kids’ illness, and they never stopped fighting, etc.
RYAN: Fine, but it didn’t warrant a film adaptation. I was not feeling this story at all; not for a movie anyway. Maybe a TV movie.
CAROLINE: I don’t know if the main problem was bad acting or bad writing, but I think it was mostly the latter. But Harrison Ford totally phoned it in. He had two deliveries in this movie: grumpy, distracted and mumbling or angry and shouting unnecessarily loudly.
RYAN: He wasn’t very colorful. And Brendan Fraser is chunky in this, even though he’s normally a looker. The wardrobe person did a terrible job. Brendan wore the same tie every time he had a suit on, this ugly navy and green thing. I couldn’t take it anymore.
CAROLINE: Poor Keri Russell’s wardrobe was sad and suburban. She didn’t get to wear any cute outfits at all.
RYAN: We were so bored by this movie that about three-quarters of the way through we started to reminisce aloud about the Golden Globes red carpet.
CAROLINE: I wished the theater had been empty so we could have carried on a full-on convo about it. Basically, if you’ve seen this trailer, you’ve seen the movie. It could have aired on Lifetime if it had lesser stars in it. I’m really not sure how it made it to the big screen.
RYAN: The whole time I felt like a kid on a long car ride. “Dad, are we there yet?” It dragged on and on, and I couldn’t wait for it to be over.
— BOTTOM LINE —
CAROLINE: I’d say this movie was disappointing, but since I wasn’t expecting much, I got exactly what I bargained for. It’s hackneyed and the storytelling is weak. It’s not dramatic enough and I was never emotionally invested. Lame all around.
RYAN: I like all the actors in the cast, but unlike in Leap Year where Amy Adams got me to care about the movie, I just couldn’t care about this one. Sorry Brendan and Harrison, but your movie stinks.
— RATING —
