Extraordinary Measures 2010

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: You can find more provocative medical crises on TV every week of the year, albeit without this film's headliners. Read more

James Rocchi, MSN Movies: Your heart can't help but be moved. Your brain can't help but groan. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: Anyway, I cried. A lot. What can I say? I'm a sucker for kids on ventilators. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: Extraordinary Measures requires extraordinary tolerance for bathos, bombast and plain old unpleasantness. Read more

John Hartl, Seattle Times: The teamwork of the actors may seem bland at first, but it grows into something spikier. Ford and Fraser tap into both their ability to generate movie-star charisma and their considerable talent for character acting. Read more

Jonathan F. Richards, Film.com: Harrison Ford still retains enough of his old movie star magic to ramp up the electricity a bit when he's onscreen, but this only makes you want to see him do something that makes better use of his gifts. Brendan Fraser just seems to grow bigger over the Read more

Tasha Robinson, AV Club: Note to TV networks: If you're looking to break into theaters, it's probably unwise to start out with a programmatic, by-the-book TV movie that implies your new theatrical-film imprint will be playing things safe and bland. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: The road to mediocrity is paved with good intentions. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: Ford - and Fraser - make this melodrama, with all its suits and lab coats, more watchable than it has any business being. Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: The story is poignant and compelling, but ultimately the film doesn't have the heft it needs to fill out the big screen. Read more

Andrea Gronvall, Chicago Reader: It sometimes feels like one of those "disease of the week" TV movies from the 1970s. Read more

Amy Biancolli, Houston Chronicle: Medical research might be dramatic as hell for those who do it, but hunched nerds in lab coats don't offer much excitement for average movie goers. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: There's something off-putting about this film's optimism: After all, how many people can afford to do what Crowley did? Read more

Kate Ward, Entertainment Weekly: Fraser works so hard playing a devoted dad, it's damn hard not to root for him. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: Even if this feeble film weren't based on a book with a gigantic plot-spoiler title, it would still feel like something you endure more than watch. Read more

Glenn Whipp, Associated Press: Fraser brings earnest sincerity to the role of the heroic dad, but all the lip quivering in the world can't overcome the movie's turgid presentation. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: Extraordinary Measures feels like one of those old disease-of-the-week flicks from a couple of decades ago -- predictable, programmed, feel-bad/feel-good melodramas forgotten as soon as you tossed away the last Kleenex. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: As the film builds to a credulity-testing climax, there is less schmaltz than you might expect from the screenwriter of Chocolat -- though the filmmakers seldom hesitate to milk the Crowley kids and other Pompe-afflicted children for tears. Read more

Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer: A slack, well-meaning disease-of-the-week drama of the sort one might encounter on the Hallmark Channel. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: The movie is a generally insipid feel-good production that's high on sentiment and manipulation but low on genuine drama and good acting. Read more

Richard Roeper, Richard Roeper.com: Extraordinary Measures, Mediocre Movie. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: This is a remarkable story. I think the film lets them down. It finds the shortest possible route between beginning and end. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com: It's about as dramatically taut as your garden-variety board meeting. And it makes you realize that jerking a tear or two isn't necessarily a bad thing for a filmmaker to do, if it at least keeps your audience awake. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: Here's the most extraordinary thing about Extraordinary Measures: I sort of liked it. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Ford's participation, and the grandstanding performance he delivers, raise it from a middlebrow TV-style weepie to a higher plateau of quality. Intermittently, anyway. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: There's nothing cinematic about this turgid tearjerker except the slumming presence of movie star Harrison Ford. Read more

Stephen Cole, Globe and Mail: At first glance, it feels like one of those inspirational weepies TV used to churn out, with a seasoned actress like Elizabeth Montgomery playing the flinty heroine. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: Few films on this topic so clearly illustrate the competing agendas and cut-throat capitalism of America's for-profit health care. Read more

Keith Uhlich, Time Out: Sadly, "Get out of my lab!" is not the new "Get off my plane!" Read more

Trevor Johnston, Time Out: Moderately illuminating in parts, but the clichA (C)s of cinematic suffering tend to overwhelm it. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: There might be a poignant movie based on the true story of a father's devoted efforts to help his ailing children, a la Lorenzo's Oil. But this tediously told tale is not that movie. Read more

Rob Nelson, Variety: Doesn't reach far beyond its smallscreen genotype as a disease-of-the-week telepic, despite the star power of Brendan Fraser as the desperate dad and Harrison Ford as an eccentric, ornery researcher. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: Vaughan has a tendency to underline, italicize and boldface the emotion when no such emphasis is needed. Read more