Underwhelming production of overwhelming tragedy

Rating: 3/10 (15 October 2013)

I'm sorry, I understand this movie is based on the remarkable true story of a family's heroism in the wake of the devastating tsunami which hit Thailand (and other countries) on Boxing Day 2004, killing thousands, but I just wasn't moved by what I saw on the screen.
Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts are barely together on screen long enough to project for the viewer any kind of meaningful relationship between them, their family of three young boys act stiltedly and unnaturally, while the dialogue is clichéd, ditto the dramatic sequences, the latter on innumerable occasions. The director isn't above cross-cutting between scenes at key moments for dramatic effect, a Hollywood M.O. from the year dot, but the manipulation here is so blatant and ham-fisted that the film somehow failed to draw me into the human drama here.
The special effects for the tsunami and Watts and her oldest boy's subsequent odyssey in the aftermath of the disaster, I found only passable, at best while McGregor's acting in particular leaves a lot to be desired, being shallow and showy by turns. Watts has less to do, being wrapped up badly injured in a hospital bed for a large part of the running time, in fact any number of the extras were more watchable in my opinion.
While I have nothing but admiration for the real-life family who somehow came through such a terrible ordeal, this formulaic, clichéd disaster movie didn't, I think, serve them well and rather ill-served its noble subject.