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Average User Score: 4 (11 sources)

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therockstop

-1

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I am still unsure what the miracle is referring to. All in all I liked the movie but there are way better WW2 movies to watch.

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Posted apr 1, 2009 3:25 am pt

movaholic

-1

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this movie was too long, it's too dull and the story was bogged down in sloppy screenwriting and intrusive subplots.

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Posted mar 16, 2009 10:20 pm pt

punisherwarzone

-1

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this was a very violent movie with a drama core to it spike lee did a good job making the movie and it costs 20 bucks but its well worth it

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Posted oct 1, 2008 9:00 am pt

• [+] Chicago Sun-Times
  
  75
  Contains scenes of brilliance, interrupted by scenes that meander. There is too much, too many characters, too many subplots. But there is so much here that is powerful that it should be seen no matter its imperfections.

  by Roger Ebert | Read Full Review »
• [+] Philadelphia Inquirer
  
  75
  Man, oh, man, much of the dialogue is so heavy, and heavy-handed, that you can see fine actors such as Derek Luke and Michael Ealy buckle under the weight. Clearly, Lee fell in love with McBride's words and couldn't bear to cut them, even when the visuals made those words redundant.

  by Carrie Rickey | Read Full Review »
• [+] Baltimore Sun
  
  75
  For all his excesses and wrong turns, Lee has made a grown-up movie with an adult sense of loss and an adult sense of hope. He may be addicted to broad flourishes, but he has the big emotions to back them up.

  by Michael Sragow | Read Full Review »
• [+] Film Threat
  
  70
  So think of it this way: Miracle at St. Anna is a Spike Lee joint that possesses a European texture in the vein of Guillermo Del Toro and Jean Pierre-Jeunet. Imaginative, thought-provoking, and intense.

  by Stina Chyn | Read Full Review »
• [+] ReelViews
  
  63
  Miracle at St. Anna is overlong and poorly focused. It tends to meander, the military context is not well established, and too much time is spent on interaction with underdeveloped secondary characters.

  by James Berardinelli | Read Full Review »
• [+] NPR
  
  55
  Even in a film that clocks in at a quasi-epic 2 hours and 40 minutes, that's just too much narrative. And matters aren't helped by the fact that Lee, who has never staged battle sequences before, hasn't quite got the rhythms or camera angles right.

  by Bob Mondello | Read Full Review »
• [+] Chicago Tribune
  
  50
  Half the time I wasn't sure what Lee was going for in terms of tone, or style, or focus. It was a tricky assignment to begin with, because McBride's novel, and his screenplay, is part socio-historical corrective, part magical-realist folklore, part wartime procedural.

  by Michael Phillips | Read Full Review »
• [+] The New York Times
  
  50
  It is in the fragile bonds that form between the black soldiers and the Italian villagers that Miracle at St. Anna breaks free of its own grandiosity and tells a grounded, moving, human story. Not a miracle by any means, but an earthy inquiry into death, duty, friendship and honor. What we've always wanted from war movies.

  by A.O. Scott | Read Full Review »
• [+] USA Today
  
  50
  Aspires to be epic, but mostly it's just unfocused, sprawling and badly in need of editing.

  by Claudia Puig | Read Full Review »
• [+] New York Daily News
  
  50
  Of course the experiences and sacrifices of black troops, which were so often overlooked, should be represented and honored. But because Lee underestimates our desire to do so, the movie that follows doesn't do them justice.

  by Elizabeth Weitzman | Read Full Review »
• [+] Portland Oregonian
  
  50
  Lee is not an action director, and the movie often feels like it was made in the 1940s rather than set then.

  by Marc Mohan | Read Full Review »
• [+] New York Post
  
  50
  Lee's framing device - which ends with a head-scratching fantasy - doesn't work. At. All.

  by Lou Lumenick | Read Full Review »
• [+] The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
  
  50
  Throughout, Terence Blanchard's score swells and sweeps, reminding us, at every moment, what we're supposed to feel. If only we knew what we were supposed to think of this trite mess.

  by Liam Lacey | Read Full Review »
• [+] Salon.com
  
  50
  A picture that's dramatically compelling in some places and plodding and didactic in others.

  by Stephanie Zacharek | Read Full Review »
• [+] Rolling Stone
  
  50
  The film collapses because Lee can't sew these vignettes into a seamless tapestry. He's more interested in getting even than he is in getting it right.

  by Peter Travers | Read Full Review »