Miracle at St. Anna

I attended the world premier of Miracle at St. Anna at Toronto International Film Festival. Unfortunately as much as I respect Spike Lee as a filmmaker I thought the movie was a bit dull and kind of boring. At 166 minutes I found that the movie was overlong and dragged too much. I became restless after awhile as the movie progressed. The story didn't seem to go anywhere, was uninteresting and I had trouble connecting with it. It was hard to follow at times as well. The movie jumped all over the place at several points to different years in the history of the characters. I found this to be jarring and irritating. Spike Lee should have taken more time to edit his film because each of the scenes went longer than they should have. It's not the worst movie I have ever seen although it could have been better. My expectations were high. I came away somewhat disappointed.

Let me begin by saying that this movie was okay. But it could have been way better.

The story itself is great and kept me interested until the end, but it's execution could have been much better. Throughout the movie, some of the acting ranged from good to bad to downright lame. Jon Turturro's cameo as a detective was extremely disappointing, for instance. The acting picks up when the flashback begins, but every so often it rockets down.

The battle scenes were, for lack of a better word, comical. They were over the top and stereotypical of any other war movie, complete with bodies being flung from explosions in an exaggerated fashion and people sobbing over amputated rubber limbs.

The characters were all over the place on the sympathy scale. Stamps and Trey (or is it Train?) elicit plenty of sympathy, whereas Bishop and whatever the girl's name was only brought out anger from me.

The worst part of the movie is the editing, though. Some of the battle scenes are choppy, and there are entire cuts to different scenes for split seconds that we could have done without (they serve no purpose whatsoever).

My biggest problem was the stereotypical racism of the white characters in the movie. The only American white people in the movie are shown as black-hating jerks who's ignorance leads them to destruction.

Overall, the movie was good. Not amazing, not great, definitely not a masterpiece, but it wasn't terrible or bad or crappy. It was a great story, but it could have been executed much better.

6.5 Stars.

Length is a factor for this film, and it's not the normal action driven war film. I was lucky enough to attend the premier in NY and from the perspective of a Cadet at West Point, I would say that I respected this film BECAUSE it "jumped around." It showed all perspectives and that there were people with good intentions on all sides. The bad intentions were included as well, and though it doesn't grab you the entire time, it tells an interesting tale. Sadly, most people don't go to see a war film for this reasons, they all want Saving Private Ryan these days. But that's not what war is always about, and this film shows the other aspects. The black soldiers are each equally representative of varying perspectives that these men had. With a lot of duality also represented, this film leaves a lot to think about if you watch it with the right eye. It seems most people I've talked to have a problem with length and action, but if you don't pay so much attention to that and just enjoy it, you'll find a nice film that takes a different approach.

As a black man who fully believes in black pride and progress, I must say I am truly disappointed with spike lee's new movie right now. I don't know where to begin in regards to expressing my disappointment but I will try. Considering how spike tries to come off as being very afro-centric, his portrayal of black characters was very insulting. There were so many typical blacks in film stereotypes in the movie that I just shook my head most of the time. For instance you had a black man with a gold tooth and stocking cap on, another that was enormous in size but brainless and country, and then to put the cherry on top the 2 guys are fighting over a white woman they met like 2 days ago and kept drooling over. Contrary to popular belief most of the white American soldiers didn't look like the actors in the movies made in the 50's and 60's. The actors looks were ploy to just associate good looks and chivalry with American soldiers in order to build moral for soldiers when they left and came home and to keep ppl interested in the movie. Another thing that really bothered me was that black films don't always need to be funny or trying to evoke laughter. This movie was suppose to be dramatic touching upon a serious subject and should have been directed in the same manner. Then the scoring of the movie was horrible. Even the little parts where he tries to show difference between African Americans and black puerto ricans was off and unnecessary. During that time those hispanics that were black or mulatto didn't try to act like there was a difference between the 2 other than language and maybe certain foods because they faced the same discriminations in PR, DR, and CUBA as in the US. These are just some of the issues I had with this movie. I think antoine faqua, who did training day and arthur, should have done this movie. I am just waiting now to see the mockery of hannibal that vin diesel does.

Lee makes a European film allowing philosophical questions and moral questions to supplant desire for personal satisfaction and identifiable this is a Spike Lee film signature patterns. There are a number of excellent directorial decisions in this film. Lee's camera is sensitive, gentle and sincere. He shows us the many ways our eyes are deceived and how much of what we perceive is illusion. I think its a great film that is inspirational, has meaning and is both emotionally and intellectually satisfying. I hope that Lee will continue to make films outside his comfort zone and articulate events from the African American experience around the world to show our contribution to history and civilization.