Sunday, Sep. 07, 2008
Miracle at St. Anna
What if Spike Lee made a Disney film? With a title that made it sound like one of those mid-century Hollywood devotionals starring Jennifer Jones or Loretta Young? Well, his new one is financed by the Mouse House, but the similarities to Splash Mountain, or to Lourdes, are only coincidental. In fact, this World War II drama might be Lee's riposte to Clint Eastwood's Flags of Our Fathers, with which Lee found fault for deleting blacks from Iwo Jima. The black GIs here dodge racist slurs — from Nazis, Italians and other American soldiers — as well as Axis bullets. But the film, based on James McBride's novel, eventually embraces images of heroism and redemption that Walt Disney himself might have loved.
— Richard Corliss