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—— After Earth May 31
—— Now You See Me May 31
88% The East May 31
100% The Kings of Summer May 31

Extraordinary Measures (2010)

tomatometer

27

Average Rating: 4.8/10
Reviews Counted: 136
Fresh: 37 | Rotten: 99

Despite a timely topic and a pair of heavyweight leads, Extraordinary Measures never feels like much more than a made-for-TV tearjerker.

18

Average Rating: 4.7/10
Critic Reviews: 34
Fresh: 6 | Rotten: 28

Despite a timely topic and a pair of heavyweight leads, Extraordinary Measures never feels like much more than a made-for-TV tearjerker.

audience

55

liked it
Average Rating: 3.3/5
User Ratings: 73,922

My Rating

Movie Info

Inspired by an incredible true story, the CBS Films docudrama portrays one father's desperate quest to save his children from succumbing to a rare life-threatening genetic disorder. Working-class father John Crowley (Brendan Fraser) is finally on the fast track to corporate success when his two young children, Megan and Patrick, are diagnosed with Pompe disease -- a condition that prevents the body from breaking down sugar. In time, it disables the heart and the muscles, ultimately resulting in

PG,

Drama

Robert Nelson Jacobs

May 18, 2010

$11.9M

CBS Films - Official Site External Icon

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All Critics (137) | Top Critics (34) | Fresh (39) | Rotten (99) | DVD (4)

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

March 2, 2010 Full Review Source: Film.com
Film.com
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Moderately illuminating in parts, but the clichà (C)s of cinematic suffering tend to overwhelm it.

February 26, 2010 Full Review Source: Time Out
Time Out
Top Critic IconTop Critic

There's something off-putting about this film's optimism: After all, how many people can afford to do what Crowley did?

January 25, 2010 Full Review Source: Christian Science Monitor
Christian Science Monitor
Top Critic IconTop Critic

It sometimes feels like one of those "disease of the week" TV movies from the 1970s.

January 25, 2010 Full Review Source: Chicago Reader
Chicago Reader
Top Critic IconTop Critic

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.

January 25, 2010 Full Review Source: Salon.com
Salon.com
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Anyway, I cried. A lot. What can I say? I'm a sucker for kids on ventilators.

January 25, 2010 Full Review Source: New York Magazine
New York Magazine
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Extraordinary Measures is a celery of a film; humorless, flavorless, mediocre through and through.

March 21, 2011 Full Review Source: ComingSoon.net
ComingSoon.net

Extraordinary Measures strives to tug at our heartstrings, and educate us on a little publicized disease, but it ends up feeling like a drug itself - manufactured using artificial chemicals by technicians in a cold lab.

October 16, 2010 Full Review Source: IGN DVD
IGN DVD

If nothing else, this movie arrives just in time to fan the flames a bit more during the heated health care debates, an every man for himself, survival for sale health care from hell thriller.

May 30, 2010 Full Review Source: NewsBlaze
NewsBlaze

Easy to root for a loving father fighting through the system, but Extraordinary Measures shamelessly piles on the sentimentality and disregards the real work of the many scientists dedicated to fighting this disease for years.

May 22, 2010 Full Review Source: Window to the Movies
Window to the Movies

A syrupy saga which somehow proves moving, in spite of a fairly formulaic, Hollywood approach to a truly inspiring, real-life triumph.

May 20, 2010 Full Review Source: Sly Fox
Sly Fox

A garden variety disease-of-the-week TV movie dressed up with cinema marquee names.

May 17, 2010 Full Review Source: TheMovieReport.com
TheMovieReport.com

If the two leading characters were women, this would have gone straight to the Lifetime network.

April 2, 2010 Full Review
Northwest Herald (Crystal Lake, IL)

This story has merit, so it's a shame it isn't a stronger adaptation of the true events that inspired it.

March 31, 2010 Full Review Source: Spectrum (St. George, Utah)
Spectrum (St. George, Utah)

If this this sounds like movie-of-the-week fodder, it is, but Extraordinary Measures hits all the right dramatic notes without tipping into sentimentality.

March 25, 2010 Full Review Source: Moving Pictures Magazine
Moving Pictures Magazine

A touching story inspired by true events. A timely subject. Two high-profile actors in Brendan Fraser and Harrison Ford. Sadly, it all adds up to an extraordinary bore.

March 5, 2010 Full Review Source: Christianity Today
Christianity Today

Soapy and unemotional, this makes a hash of an interesting true story.

February 26, 2010 Full Review Source: Empire Magazine
Empire Magazine

Those expecting the exuberance of an Erin Brockovich from the same producers will be disappointed. Extraordinary Measures is sensitive and dull.

February 26, 2010 Full Review Source: Film4
Film4

Harrison Ford is the clichà (C) of a scientist who cares more for equations than humans, and works to atrocious rock music. The child actors are cloying in their cuteness. A serious subject drowned by sentimentality.

February 26, 2010 Full Review Source: Times [UK]
Times [UK]

Audience Reviews for Extraordinary Measures

Its an okay movie. Ford and Fraser are good strong leads with a good supporting cast. The storyline is okay and although based on a true story i dont think its really a best movie maker, should just of stayed for tv movie.
its a nice enough heart warming, if not inspiring movie of one dads motivation to cure his kids,but this movie is only 'okay' and is okay enough to watch on a sunday afternoon.
January 21, 2010
FiLmCrAzY
Film Crazy

Super Reviewer

Taking a break from trying to amuse the kids with forgettable family films, Brendan Fraser is trying to save the kids with tolerable family drama.
The first feature made by CBS Films, Extraordinary Measures is largely bereft of the mawkish excess of recent kids-with-cancer slog Matching Jack. Sick children and Crowley's (Fraser) selfless wife Aileen (Keri Russell) often disappear, leaving us with starstruck Fraser and Harrison Ford arguing, or fighting the power. Jared Harris is suitably terse as a cold-hearted pharmaceutical "suit", yet professionally crabby Ford ensures that those on the front line of medicine aren't whitewashed as altruistic saints.
This is terribly tense - or draining, even with Fraser's constant effort to prove he's a serious performer by bugging his eyes in a serious manner. But being unaffected by the prime objective is impossible.
October 6, 2009
deano
Dean McKenna

Super Reviewer

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