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80Slick enterprise buoyed by a Motown-flavored '60s soundtrack and an appealing ensemble cast.
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80From its sepia-toned palette to the Motown hits that drive its terrific soundtrack, Glory Road is utterly authentic. But most astonishing is an unrecognizable Jon Voight as Adolph Rupp.
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75Where it succeeds is as the story of a chapter in history, the story of how one coach at one school arrived at an obvious conclusion and acted on it, and helped open college sports in the South to generations of African Americans.
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75The movie's great end-title sequence redeems everything. Under the credits, we see and hear the real-life game veterans as they are now--including, movingly, ex-Lakers coach Riley.
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75In the end, a sports movie is only as good as the adrenalin rush it provides in the climactic match, and there, finally, Glory Road hits on all cylinders with nonstop action and a powerful emotional impact.
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75Lucas rarely breaks his glower to express anything other than tough determination. It's an attitude that's clearly modeled on that of storied Nicks' coach Pat Riley, who, it so happens, played for Kentucky that now legendary final game.
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75Glory Road's strength is the way in which it blends social awareness into the sports genre.
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70Stirring tale of a team whose big win speeds the integration of intercollegiate sports.
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70When a movie plays every card, it's bound to win a hand or two. You can't exactly call that approach craftsmanship. But in the case of the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced inspirational sports drama Glory Road, it at least amounts to a kind of blunt effectiveness.
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70As American history, Glory Road is by turns inspirational and thrilling. But, in keeping with Hollywood's gift for exaggeration, a couple of things about it are completely bogus.
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70This isn't a great film, but it's a surprisingly good and confident one, with a minimum of the showboating that often substitutes, in the feelgood genre, for simple feelings.
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67Heart and verve in surfeit makes the film rise above its flaws often enough to win you over.
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63As movie fiction, I guess it is entertaining enough.
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As Coach Haskins would say, it wins because it sticks to the fundamentals.
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63At least a more satisfying basketball saga than last year's "Coach Carter."
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63While basketball fans might have trouble recognizing the sport as it's played here, the games certainly aren't dull. Unfortunately, most of the off-court sequences are.
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60Ripped directly from Disney's playbook of inspirational sports movies, it's devoid of any original elements that might deter it from that successful formula, hewing closer to the sentimental cliches of "Remember the Titans" than the much better "Miracle" or "The Rookie."
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60Glory Road is satisfying less for its virtuosity than for its sincerity, and also because it will acquaint audiences with a remarkable episode that had ramifications far beyond the basketball court.
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58Still, it's only just a jump shot or two before Glory Road settles into its rudimentary, music-cued rhythms of classroom civics lessons punctuated by on-court action.
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58Haskins comes across as too pure. When he plays only his black athletes in the championship finals, his monomania is presented as a good thing. After all, he won, didn't he?
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50Josh Lucas plays Haskins with a no-bull vigor that comes in handy when the script saddles him with all-bull platitudes.
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50A formulaic and fuzzy feel-good movie.
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50If you can get past a few swear words, the film's simplicity makes Glory Road a good starting point to get young kids to talk about racism.
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50This is a movie you could watch in your sleep.
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50If the facts of the story are essentially true, their presentation is as formulaic as ever.
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50Glory Road really isn't a bad show – it's just an obvious one – and one wishes material of this historical import had received a more refined rendering.
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50The end result is more a lecture than a film; audiences may come away understanding what went on, but for most, the emotional connection will be lacking.
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50Glory Road keeps its focus frustratingly narrow. There's a nugget of an interesting idea here...But first-time director James Gartner's movie is less a study of race than it is a fast break of underdog clichés and "inspirational" speeches.
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As Coach Haskins would have put it, "It's activity without accomplishment."
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50First-time director James Gartner observes all the rituals--the coach busting chops, the team sneaking out to party--but the players are indifferently characterized and the civil rights story has a fake Black History Month feel.
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50Glory Road treats history as if it were a 7th-grade social-studies text laid out in a 16-point font, getting the basics right without trying to evoke any of the details that would make it memorable. In other words, it gets the Bruckheimer treatment.
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42The air of deja vu is thick as molasses in Glory Road, a lively but overly slick and grindingly predictable sports drama.
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30First-time director James Gartner has managed to whittle away whatever was compelling about the 1966 Miners championship run.
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Mixed: 3 out of 20
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