- Critic Score
- Most active
- Publication
- Most clicked
-
50Carla Gugino, however, energizes the film with every step of her self-assured stride. She genuinely manages to create a dimensional character who is fulsomely inspirational – and as I said at the outset, that's not too shabby an accomplishment when it comes to the world of women and sports movies.
-
50The Mighty Macs sticks so closely to the underdog-sports-movie playbook that it's practically generic.
-
50There is nothing to complain about except the film's deadening predictability and the bland, shallow characters.
-
63The film doesn't pretend to be anything other than what it is: a story of one woman overcoming low expectations. Gugino and Burstyn and the young performers playing the young players do likewise.
-
60Carla Gugino has yet to find the right movie that clicks with her spunky outsider appeal, but The Mighty Macs, a gauzy, inspiring true-life drama about a girls' basketball team, at least gets her close and provides a lot of assists.
-
50Everything plays out exactly as you'd expect in a cheerful, well-meaning movie in the style of something made for the Disney channel.
-
63This tiny Catholic school for women dominated the sport at a turning point in history, and this plucky, old-fashioned sports drama sets the scene and tells the tale with a lot of heart and a dash of wit.
-
63One wishes that Chambers had more gracefully integrated the stories of the individual players into this celebration of Rush.
-
50Mighty Macs further distinguishes itself by, for once, giving a fair shake to nuns, who are treated with respect both in the performance of Ellen Burstyn, as the mother superior, and of Marley Shelton, who plays the assistant coach. It's about time.
-
Oct 17, 201112The Mighty Macs is a film from another planet, where stories are told, obliviously, in cryptic, nonsensical code, and people talk to each other in sugarplum proverbs no earthbound adult would ever inflict on another, not even on the set of a Hallmark Original Movie.
-
63This true story fills a needed niche, spotlighting women's basketball in the era before Title IX promoted equal treatment.
-
67It's a nice movie, and can certainly be inspirational for the proper audiences.
-
42There must have been a reason why the real-life Rush could do so much with seemingly so little, but The Mighty Macs never captures it. It lets canned inspiration provide the uplift, instead of something more tangible.
-
50The movie does say a lot about female athletes and the changing role of women in American society, but in aggressively pursuing the formula, writer-director-producer Tim Chambers is prone to exaggeration and a moralizing tone.
-
70Sometimes a film feels a bit too pat and yet is impossible to resist. The Mighty Macs, based on the national championship run of the 1972 women's basketball team at Immaculata College near Philadelphia, is such a film: lots of button pushing, but in the end you're glad you saw it.
-
40It's a saga whose clichéd corniness would be practically sinful if not for the mighty Gugino, who almost counteracts the material's pap with megawatt charm and steel-tough resolve - exemplified by a low-angled intro shot of the poised, strutting, tight-sweater-sexy actress.
-
70Family-friendly and abounding in uplift, The Mighty Macs is an undemandingly pleasant indie drama.
-
40Appears to have been made on a budget equivalent to the cost of a WNBA fleece hoodie. But even at that price, the first feature by Tim Chambers is profligate with sports-movie clichés.
-
Oct 20, 201138It all amounts to a missed opportunity considering how many female athletes and sports fans would probably flock to the first film that targets their demographic since "A League of Their Own" nearly 20 years ago. The people behind The Mighty Macs could learn a lot from that film, especially that following formula is fine, as long as you don't skimp on the details that complete the portrait.