Extraordinary Measures *

Director: Tom Vaughan
Cast: Harrison Ford, Brendan Fraser, Keri Russell
Meredith Droeger, Diego Velazquez, Sam M. Hall, Jared Harris

Movies like Extraordinary Measures are perhaps doomed from the beginning. From the minute that it opens announcing it's based on real events, it's setting itself up into a trap; for not only will it have to live up to genre expectations but also must walk between the very delicate line of reverential biopic and schmaltz fest.
Because it deals with Pompe's disease (an incurable genetic disorder that affects muscles and nerves) we can expect it to veer a little more into the sentimental side.
The plot basically centers around John Crowley (Fraser), an assertive executive whose two youngest children Megan (Droeger) and John (Hall) suffer the rare ailment. When the children's life expectancy is about to reach its end, John and his wife Aileen (Russell) begin a foundation to raise money to find treatment.
They must recruit hermit scientist Robert Stonehill (Ford) who lives in Nebraska and feels more comfortable among test tubes and equations than with other human beings.
So begins an "odd couple" kind of thing where John's will power and love for his kids are put in contrast with Dr. Stonehill's idiosyncrasies.
For a simple effective movie, this would've sufficed. Seeing how the two men learn from each other and realize that they're not so different in the end has worked in similar movies.
This one however takes a different approach and instead contrasts the differences between John's business approach and Stonehill's scientific method.
Before long the movie turns into a dull battle between being fiscally responsible or sticking to academia.
This might be how the world works, where entrepreneurial qualities matter more than actual life saving, but who would want to hear about profits and enzymes in a fiction movie?
Even if this could've worked better as some sort of thesis, the director doesn't explore it this way and the movie ends up trying to satisfy its characters' whims.
Fraser and Ford never really turn their characters into actual human beings. Ford obviously makes the most of his caddish charm even if the character's eccentricity is too selfindulgent.
For the movie to work perhaps it would've needed to be made sixty years ago, films like Madame Curie combined science with melodrama effectively; for current audiences a film like that would feel dated or silly but probably would make more sense than this soulless work.
The movie does tap into a great energy with Droeger's performance, she could've taken a path of misery and overwrought drama but instead infects the movie with an adorable optimism.
Extraordinary Measures does try the dramatic aspect as well and when the inevitable "the medicine is working!" moment comes, the big inspirational score and crane shot kick in almost by inertia.
Too bad that they recur to classic Hollywood when the film is already beyond salvation.

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor **

Director: Rob Cohen
Cast:
Brendan Fraser,
Maria Bello
Jet Li,
John Hannah,
Luke Ford
Isabella Leong,
Michelle Yeoh

Set fourteen years after "The Mummy Returns", this new adventure has the O'Connells, Rick (Fraser) and Evy (Bello) living a quiet life in England, while their son Alex (Ford) uncovers the tomb of the legendary Emperor Han (Li) in China.
Looking to put some excitement back into their lives, Rick and Evy sign up for a special mission and in Shanghai discover that there's a plot to bring back to life the emperor their son found.
Soon enough they are all involved in an exciting chase that has them travelling through the Himalayas, battling a Terracotta army and looking for the mysterious Shangri-La.
If we can make it with CGI, it will happen, seems to be the ongoing motto of the film, which features a constantly renewing mummy, who like most of the film has lost the thrilling sense of surprise and tries to impress by exploiting its resources.
The film is often at its best when it captures the interaction between Rick and Evy, with Fraser relying on his great charm to convince us he does this as a lifestyle and while it's tricky to get adjusted to Rachel Weisz's change, Bello reinvents Evy, as a less bookish, more strong willed woman just coming to terms with the power of her sexuality.
Li is used as a token martial arts expert and Hannah, as he has in previous entries, pretty much steals every scene he's in as well as Yeoh, who has the presence of a grand dame of cinema and happens to know how to high kick.
While the previous entries (particularly the first one, which was a breath of fresh air in the adventure blockbuster) had the situations unfold at the service of an innocent, exciting story, every scene here seems to have been made for the mere purpose of leading to a gargantuan battle between dead armies, which sadly is less impressive than director Cohen thinks and the film sometimes tries too hard to impress its audience.
The original "Mummy" was bold enough to create terror with shadows and the appearance of a shaky hand wrapped in bandage, while this one with all its explosions, chases and effects never musters a gasp.
Whatever happened to this film that made it think of wonder as an archaelogical artifact?