pretty standard stuff

Rating: 5/10 (1 April 2004)

A few interesting ideas as a starting point, and from there on predictability all the way. I believe the technical term for this sort of movie is 'crowd pleaser', and it's easy to see why it won so many Oscars. There's redemption, there's hardships to overcome, there's comradery. The predictability and dumbing down is rising to levels that makes the food inside me almost rise too.
Case in point: the Chief. Will Sampson played deaf and dumb convincingly, until Murphy found out that he wasn't deaf and dumb at all. From that point on the Chief had metamorphosed into somebody who could hear, and the movie viewers were implicitly invited to pretend like the nursing staff hadn't noticed. Every time something was said, you could see the Chief react. But only for the viewers' sakes, of course. Wouldn't want them to not understand what had happened. Bad case of disbelief kicking in.
Still, and entertaining movie, just not a very good one.