???Spike Lee's most recent joint, Miracle at St. Anna, is an epic World War II film that attempts to pay homage to the all-black 92nd "Buffalo Soldier" Division while recreating the war film genre.
???These are ambitious goals for the notoriously adventurous director who most recently attempted (and just barely failed) at recreating the heist film (Inside Man) and took the "television miniseries" genre by storm with his four-part HBO film about Katrina, When The Levees Broke.
???Miracle, alas, drowns in its epic size and scale, with an intriguing start that quickly deteriorates into a boring melodrama.
???The first scenes revolve around the murder of an Italian man by Hector Negron (Laz Alonso, This Christmas) in 1983. When asked by a young reporter (The Lookout's Joseph Gordon-Levitt in a wasted role) why Negron committed the crime, he stutters, "I...know..."
???Unfortunately, what Negron knows is not revealed or delivered in a way that is all that powerful over the next two and a half hours.
???The majority of the movie is told in flashback, focusing on the four black soldiers left alive in their division after suffering an attack in Tuscany, Italy. The four take refuge in a small village, interacting with a tight-knit group of Italians while preparing for an inevitable Nazi attack.
???The diminished group's leader, 2nd Staff Sergeant Aubrey Stamps, (Derek Luke, Definitely, Maybe), does his best to act like he knows what he's doing. Luke puts in a good performance; he nearly makes the audience care about his extremely shallow character.
??? Michael Ealy (Jellysmoke) is reliable as Sergeant Cummings, a cocky young soldier competing with Stamps for the love of Renata, (Valentina Cervi, The Rest of the Night) the village beauty.
Negron is just another one of the four soldiers, a stoic character with virtually no depth. It seems his sole purpose is to survive to tell the story later on.
???Omar Benson Miller (The Express) plays the fourth "Buffalo Soldier," Private Sam Train, who spends most of the film taking care of a young Italian boy (Matteo Sciabordi in his first screen appearance) named Angelo. Sciabordi's Angelo is the deepest character in the film and one of the only reasons it does not completely fall apart as a whole.
???Where Miracle falters is in its screenplay and, surprisingly, its direction. Written by James McBride, adapted from his non-fiction book of the same name, many lines fall flat or, worse, corny, inciting giggles from an audience that's supposed to be crying.
???Lee directs rather impersonally, rarely using close-ups and holding shots for far too long. In the end, Miracle comes across as one of the most impassionate films of his long, accomplished career. Terence Blanchard over-saturates the film with an obnoxiously robust score that distracts the audience.
???The film plays as though Lee had too much to say and not enough time to say it in.
???Certain scenes mesmerize and Matthew Libatique's (Iron Man) cinematography captures the natural beauty of Italy, providing a striking parallel to the horrors of war.
???Not much war actually occurs in the movie and when it does it's executed awkwardly, feeling staged and unrealistic. Too much time is spent in the Italian village without much happening. Every relationship with the potential to blossom, save Train's relationship with Angelo, withers away into clich?(c)s.
???The brutality of war is a hard element to explore in any new way, having been explored so much in countless films past. Lee's attempt to do so is a noble failure, promising future improvements.
