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Miracle at St. Anna

Miracle at St. Anna (2008)

tomatometer

34

Average Rating: 5.2/10
Reviews Counted: 118
Fresh: 40 | Rotten: 78

Miracle at St. Anna is a well-intentioned but overlong, disjointed affair that hits few of the right notes.

24

Average Rating: 4.6/10
Critic Reviews: 34
Fresh: 8 | Rotten: 26

Miracle at St. Anna is a well-intentioned but overlong, disjointed affair that hits few of the right notes.

audience

55

liked it
Average Rating: 3.3/5
User Ratings: 16,067

My Rating

Movie Info

Spike Lee's World War II film Miracle at St. Anna begins in 1983 with Hector Negron, a veteran of that war, unexpectedly shooting a customer dead. Police discover that the suspect, a quiet postal worker, kept a statue head worth millions of dollars in his apartment. An eager young reporter (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) interviews Negron in his cell about the mysterious artifact. While serving in the all-minority 92nd "Buffalo Soldier" Division, Negron and three comrades managed to sneak deep into enemy

R, 2 hr. 40 min.

Drama

James McBride

Feb 10, 2009

$7.8M

Touchstone Pictures

Cast

All Critics (119) | Top Critics (34) | Fresh (41) | Rotten (82) | DVD (12)

Lee is a filmmaker who, through talent, accomplishment, and a constant working of the refs in the Hollywood system, has earned autonomy over his films. I'm all for artistic freedom, but here he could have used a bit of oversight.

November 10, 2008 Full Review Source: Film.com | Comments (2)
Film.com
Top Critic IconTop Critic

It's impressive that a filmmaker of Lee's distinction is willing to continue to push boundaries.

November 7, 2008 Full Review Source: At the Movies | Comment
At the Movies
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Clocking in at 160 minutes, this interminable movie comes across like a rough cut. Perhaps Lee believed its length would give it gravitas. The opposite is true.

September 29, 2008 Full Review Source: Christian Science Monitor | Comment
Christian Science Monitor
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Given the importance of that subject, the real mystery of Mr. Lee's movie is why it's so diffuse, dispirited, emotionally distanced and dramatically inert.

September 26, 2008 Full Review Source: Wall Street Journal | Comment
Wall Street Journal
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Overwrought, overproduced, overbusy and overlong, Miracle at St. Anna finally suffers from the worst filmmaking sin of all: the failure of trust, in the story and the audience.

September 26, 2008 Full Review Source: Washington Post | Comment (1)
Washington Post
Top Critic IconTop Critic

[Lee] resorts to many of the same hoary clichés and fantasy situations he so frequently condemns.

September 26, 2008 Full Review Source: Toronto Star | Comment
Toronto Star
Top Critic IconTop Critic

At 160 minutes, it definitely suffers from Oscar Bloat.

August 15, 2011 Full Review Source: East Bay Express | Comment
East Bay Express

Miracle makes a bid for epic status, but Lee throws in more elements - including murder mystery and supernatural fantasy - than the narrative can stand. The two big battle scenes are impressively staged, but the action in between sprawls and stumbles.

June 27, 2011 Full Review Source: Movie Talk | Comment

Takes too long to get to its one moving moment at the end.

September 18, 2009 Full Review Source: Ozus' World Movie Reviews | Comment
Ozus' World Movie Reviews

Spike Lee has turned in an odd hybrid of a film--a 160 minute war epic combined with a crime thriller combined with a discourse on civil rights.

August 30, 2009 Full Review Source: Washington Times | Comments (2)

As a theoretical corrective, it's salutary; as a movie, it's a frickin' blooper

August 26, 2009 Full Review Source: CinePassion | Comment
CinePassion

Watching these characters try to be worthy of a hero's film over the course of two and a half hours was simply excruciating.

April 18, 2009 Full Review Source: 7M Pictures | Comment (1)
7M Pictures

The agenda is obvious, but the rage feels justified, and meanwhile Lee gives us a few virtuoso touches.

February 18, 2009 Full Review Source: Window to the Movies | Comment
Window to the Movies

While it does have its weak points, it's held together by its unique angle on the war as well as strong characterization for its central characters.

February 17, 2009 Full Review Source: Movie Views | Comment

Tries to be too many different things, with the only constant being a self-consciousness that never lets you forget you're watching a film rather than stepping back in time to experience life as a Buffalo Soldier.

February 10, 2009 Full Review Source: Movie Metropolis | Comment
Movie Metropolis

This DVD joint isn't very fat.

February 9, 2009 Full Review Source: Slant Magazine | Comment
Slant Magazine

Spike Lee's WWII saga belatedly pays tribute to the bravery of the black GIs known as the Buffalo Soldiers.

February 5, 2009 Full Review Source: NewsBlaze | Comment
NewsBlaze

Problematic as a narrative...[but] Lee's simply too smart and talented to make a dismissible film. [Blu-ray]

February 4, 2009 Full Review Source: Groucho Reviews | Comment

The Blu-ray disc includes much more than the DVD, starting with a documentary on the real Buffalo Soldiers infantry division.

January 28, 2009 Full Review Source: Apollo Guide | Comment
Apollo Guide

Ask ten people who've seen this movie what the title's "miracle" is referring to, and you'll get a couple of different guesses and a whole lot of blank stares and shrugs.

January 28, 2009 Full Review Source: Apollo Guide | Comments (6)
Apollo Guide

There are endearing moments but we're in a Spike Lee world where it's okay to interject his "black vs. the privileged white-man" lecture time and again to the detriment of the film.

January 25, 2009 Full Review Source: Cinema Signals | Comments (2)
Cinema Signals
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for Miracle at St. Anna

Band of Brothaz

June 12, 2010
TheDudeLebowski65
Jeff "The Dude" Lebowski

Super Reviewer

whoever wrote the script should be sentenced to 10 courses in remedial scriptwriting 101. What a mess - dialogue right out of a high school play, while beating us over the head with its message, and being completely unable to decide what type of film it wants to be. We take a prommissing start, with some nice

September 29, 2009
maxthesax
paul sandberg

Super Reviewer

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Foreign Titles

  • Miracle at Santa Anna (UK)
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