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scottchrist
Reviews
My Baby's Daddy (2004)
A total flop
Part of the reason this movie got such awful reviews could be because going in, it would be reasonable to expect a movie with this subject matter to be slightly more grown up in terms of the comedy, when in reality, it's basically early Sandler quality material, and no one really comes along to save it as it just keeps on the same steady pace of dullness the entire way.
Co-writer and star Eddie Griffin is awful as usual, but Anthony Anderson and Michael Imperioli both given decent, if rather uninspired, performances in their leading roles. Imperioli is a fine actor and Anderson is generally good for at least a laugh or two, but the material fails their talents. John Amos ("Good Times") is good, but most of the supporting cast is useless or, at best, unmemorable. Paula Jai Parker and the Sklar brothers turn in notably unfunny performances.
The character development is atrocious. Most notably, Dominic (Imperioli) is supposedly a player, but apparently we're just supposed to take their word for it. G (Anderson) is lazy, which we're supposed to get out of him being late for work once. Lonnie (Griffin) is the only one whose character appears on screen to be what we're being told it is, but his storyline is so predictable and lazy that it doesn't really matter.
Bottom line: If you're looking for a way to waste an hour and a half without thinking or even needing to really pay attention at all, you can do worse than this movie, but it's the epitome of a movie that TBS is going to inevitably show 30 times a year. It tells very little story, all of it you can see coming a mile away, and you might chuckle a couple of times. It might not be as bad as I had thought it was going to be, but it's still bad.
Miracle (2004)
Shallow, disappointing film adaptation of one of sport's greatest stories
When I first saw the trailer for Disney's "Miracle" last summer, I told myself I'd go and see that film on opening weekend. It is unquestionably a film that deserved to be made. Perhaps, though, it deserved to be made by someone else.
Like Disney's last true story, feel-good sports outing, 2002's "The Rookie," "Miracle" never quite captures the emotion and inspiration it should, given that the story behind the production is a tremendous one in both instances.
Though his performance is praised by those who knew Herb Brooks, the great coach that led this team to their improbable triumph, Kurt Russell struggles as the lead with an underwritten character. That's a theme that would become recurring, almost monotonous, for everyone else. Disney does not give the "characters" (I hesitate to call them as such, since they are real people) any room to breathe, and the story falters greatly at various points. It has a stop-and-go feeling to it, where things apparently just magically happen without the viewer being given the privilege of actually seeing them unfold. At one point, these guys aren't getting along so well. Then, they're starting to play together. And before you know it, we've apparently witnessed the birth of a hockey family after an outsider is brought into the fold.
The only true focus any of the players get goes to Mike Eruzione (Patrick O'Brien Demsey) and goalie Jim Craig (Eddie Cahill), and it is largely undeveloped and unrealized. Both young men were remarkable and inspirational stories in their own right, but neither can seem to really open up in this film. Eruzione goes from nearly being cut to being the captain, with little-to-no visible reason for it. Craig pops up every twenty minutes or so to have an issue with something, reminding us that this guy has some issues he needs to get through. That's really about as far as we ever get into these young men, besides some feats of toughness from Jack O'Callahan (Michael Mantenuto) and Rob McClanahan (Nathan West).
Overall, "Miracle" falls disappointingly short of the glory that the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team brought to a sport and, truly, an entire nation. It's hard to care about the players, as you never truly get to know any of them, or even get to know the team itself. We never get to see Herb Brooks really teaching them the new style of hockey the players adapted to succeed against the Russians and the rest of the world's top teams, and we never get to see exactly when this ragtag bunch of kids really becomes a bona fide team. While we know those things truly happened, and that makes it easy to fill in the blanks, "Miracle," standing alone, does not satisfy.