Review by All Movie Guide
All Movie Guide
is neutral about it.
The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima is often and perhaps inevitably compared to
The Song of Bernadette, and it's easy to see why. While
Fatima is a good movie, it suffers in comparison with
Bernadette. While both films dealt with religious figures and events,
Bernadette managed to give complexity and depth to its main character.
Fatima is not so fortunate, in part because its main character is a child. Children can certainly be as complicated as any other human, but it's harder to write a complicated child for the screen -- and the number of young actors talented enough to handle a complex role is also rather small. Even given this situation, however, the makers of
Fatima could have dug deeper into the adults in the story and how they are affected by this strange story. Instead, the writers have kept the adults shallow and treated their involvement in a fairly obvious way. None of this keeps
Fatima from being a good film, for the basic story is one that is guaranteed to keep one's interest, whether one believes it or not. But it does keep
Fatima from a much better film. As indicated above, young Susan Whitney, though good, is not quite up to carrying as much of the film as she is asked.
Sherry Jackson and Sammy Ogg, however, are quite good, and the adults, especially
Gilbert Roland, do very well, even when not given a lot to do. Although
Fatima will always appeal more to those who believe in the story and who will therefore be more inclined to overlook its flaws as drama, it still hs enough story to keep even skeptics interested. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide