I imagine trying to find a cure for a kid-killing disease would be anything but a walk in the park, but you’d never know it from watching Extraordinary Measures, a tepid, by-the-numbers tear-fest starring Harrison Ford and Brendan Fraser that would feel right at home on the small screen.

It tells the real-life story of how John Crowley (Fraser), a marketing exec at Bristol-Meyers, and his wife (Keri Russell) fought to find a cure for Pompe disease, a rare genetic disorder affecting the muscles from which two of their three children suffer.

This is by no means a bad movie. Indeed, as a production it’s very competent, from the acting and direction to the lighting and editing. But nothing more. There’s no passion, no energy, to any of it, including the numerous scenes designed to make you cry, like when the afflicted 6-year-old-son becomes too weak to even toss bread crumbs to ducks, or when the 8-year-old daughter can’t throw a ball.

I’m not quite sure why. Maybe it’s because it was financed by newly-formed CBS Pictures, hence its disease-of-the-week feel. Or maybe it should have been directed by sick-kid-flick expert Nick Cassavetes (My Sister’s Keeper) instead of Tom Vaughan, whose short Hollywood resume consists of What Happens in Vegas.

Of course, it could also be the rote screenplay (based on a book by Geeta Anand about the family’s struggle) by the guy who wrote Flushed Away. There’s a lot of tedious talk about enzymes and “core teams” and such. Not to mention smudging certain facts for the sake of drama, like how in reality kids afflicted with Pompe rarely live beyond the age of 2.

Fraser and Russell basically do what they’re told, including crying on cue, while Ford, as the fictional researcher, is the star of the lukewarm show. His role is what passes for showy here and feels akin to the one he played in The Mosquito Coast–a stubborn, cranky guy who chafes at having to follow someone else’s rules–but his performance of it is all surface gruffness that gets inevitably softened.

On a positive note, the film does educate us on a disease I gather most of us know little about, and it seems less manipulative than most terminal illness stories. Yet it’s such an undemanding experience, with its soft score and happy ending, that you almost instantly forget about it the second Eric Clapton’s “Change the World” finishes playing over the end credits. – [DVD]

Drama

Rated PG

DVD Release Date: 5/18/10

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