Extraordinary Measures - *1/2

As I have mentioned in previous posts, we started this blog about a month and a half late. So I have been trying to catch up on all of the movies that I have seen in the order that I saw them. I sat down a few minutes ago with the intention of writing about To Save a Life, which was a miserable piece of trash that I did not feel like thinking about, so I decided I'd go to the next film I saw after that. Upon consulting my film log for this year I realized that I saw Extraordinary Measures, which I had completely forgotten. For the past two weeks I have been thinking back on everything I've seen (except, apparently, Extraordinary Measures) and making notes on what to say about them, but not once did I remember this one until about four minutes ago. With that in mind, here are some of the things I do remember:

It felt like it was made for TV. It's a hokey, sappy story of a group of people banding together to cure disabled kids. Along the way they go up against the forces of evil corporate types that just want to make money off of the cure.

If it hadn't been based on a true story I would have been rooting for the kid to die.

I think Harrison Ford was in it. Yup, imdb says he was, but it doesn't state that this was the bored, old-age Harrison Ford who will say yes to anything, the Harrison Ford that will make you beg for the mediocrity of Indiana Jones 5.

I don't think I can remember the last time that I decided it was more important to go to the bathroom than actually watch the movie in its entirety.

When I went to the bathroom I was confident I wasn't missing anything.

The best part of the film was when I tweeted that a kid in a wheelchair had just bowled a strike, and a friend replied that Larry King would probably call it the best sports film of the year.

I checked late and Larry King did not actually make that comment, but it does sound like something he would say.

In the end they found the cure and the kid survived, and despite the fact that it was a true story, I felt that the filmmakers should have taken dramatic license and found the cure one minute too late.

Okay, maybe kids dying is a little harsh, but somebody should have died.

No, I take that back, I wish the kid would have died. This maudlin little story didn't have enough inspirational montages for the happy ending to be satisfying. It needed a little struggle, a little drama, or some shock moments. They could have at least had a moment where they thought the kid was dead, and had that shot of the heart monitor flat-lining, and then show Brendan Fraser and Harry Ford looking on in disbelief for a couple of seconds before they saw a couple of blips. But no, everyone was always safe. Kill the kid, I add a star to the rating.