Miracle

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

To make a movie about that team and those games requires more than an ability to depict personal dramas or re-enact game highlights. It requires the re- creation of a world and a mind-set, and Miracle accomplishes both brilliantly.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Russell's conviction is so total that it tingles the spines of the audience.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

An extraordinarily exciting, absorbing and satisfying movie. Not quite "Seabiscuit," but comfortably close.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

This film reminds us you can have a miracle only when David slings a stone at Goliath, not when two Goliaths pummel each other with sticks.

The Hollywood Reporter Sheri Linden

What will make the film compelling even for audiences who never heard of the miracle on ice is Kurt Russell's taut, nuanced portrait of Herb Brooks.

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

At the movie's core, disguised with pitch-perfect Minnesota accent and bushy comb-over hairdo, the perpetually underrated Kurt Russell (as the late coach Herb Brooks) delivers a brilliant performance of immaculate control.

Variety Joe Leydon

Key to drama's success is the artful underplaying by Kurt Russell in the lead role of Herb Brooks.

Dallas Observer Bill Gallo

An unabashed flag-waver and one of the best feel-good sports movies ever, this authentic charmer does for its young hockey players what John Wayne used to do for the U.S. Marines, and it lifts us, too, onto the boys' cloud of belief.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Powered by an excellent Kurt Russell performance, Miracle treats old-fashioned, emotional material with an intelligence that respects both the story and the audience.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

Reproducing every bruise, blowup and body-check and getting right up on the ice and into the fray, the movie brings the audience back to 1980 with bone-crunching verisimilitude.

Premiere Kelly Borgeson

Miracle is definitely exciting, and it’s family-family to boot. Take the kids. They may not buy the "any dream is possible" stuff, but if nothing else, the story might pique their interest in American history.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

You keep rooting for the team, mostly because director Gavin O’Connor (the terrific Tumbleweeds) cast real athletes instead of actors, a canny decision that pays major dividends when the big game is re-created.

Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan

Ordinary folks working together to triumph over incredible odds, depicted in a Disney film that doesn't overdose on sentiment? That's the real miracle.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Although playing a hockey coach might seem like a slap shot for an actor, Russell does real acting here. He has thought about Brooks and internalized him.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Miracle -- the title taken from TV announcer Al Michaels' famous game-clinching cheer, ''Do you believe in miracles? Yes!'' -- wins not when it exhorts by word but when it shows by action.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Miracle is inspirational and uplifting -- qualities we are as much in need of today as we were during the winter of 1980.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Miracle really isn't about the game. It's about the game as metaphor for united we stand.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

What is lacking in suspense is more than made up for in passion and in sports cinematography virtuosity.

TV Guide Angel Cohn

This hockey movie scores, thanks to director Gavin O'Connor's ability to skate that fine line between inspirational and melodramatic and achieve a satisfying balance.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Once these players strap on their skates and take to the ice, it's hard to suppress that lump in the throat.

Film Threat David Grove

Powerful in its recreation of a magical time and place and it really does make us believe that miracles are possible.

Village Voice Ed Park

Kurt Russell is terrific as coach Herb Brooks, psychological tactician out to redeem his being cut from the 1960 U.S. squad, the last one to beat the CCCP.

Film Threat Mark Sells

The film has many great moments, but dare I say, it’s not melodramatic enough. To understand the magnitude of the miracle on ice, you had to live it, breathe it, and feel it.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

You might cheer. You might cry. For a minute, you might even wish it were you on that medal stand.

Chicago Tribune Mark Caro

While the movie's heroes lay everything on the line, Miracle is too content to skate along the surface.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Patricia Clarkson, who has emerged as one of the screen's best character actresses, plays Brooks' wife with intelligence and down-to-earth warmth.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

Does a yeoman's job of recycling the day-old dough that passes for its story.

Washington Post Mark Jenkins

Miracle works best when the players are on the ice, shot in a faux-documentary style that uses the now-customary handheld cameras, fast pans and machine-gun edits.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Kurt Russell gives a terse, unsentimental performance as coach Herb Brooks, but director Gavin O'Connor sticks to the "Hoosiers" playbook.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

The best and most moving part of Miracle may be the closing credits, in which we see pictures of the actors accompanied by the names of the real-life characters they played and a strip of type that tells us where they are now.

Miami Herald Connie Ogle

Unfortunately Miracle is long on cliché and short on originality.

Austin Chronicle Marrit Ingman

A suitably rigorous sports movie. On the other hand, at no time does it break out of the "sports movie" mold.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

The climax, a 20-minute dramatization of the crucial contest, lacks both suspense and poetry -- essentially, we're left to watch a clumsy recreation of a game whose outcome we already know. That's a sort of resurrection, I suppose, but miraculous it assuredly ain't.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Like the Oscar-nominated "Seabiscuit," though, Miracle fails to ring true as it tries to make a sporting event an all-embracing metaphor for the American way.

New York Post Megan Lehmann

The feel-good finale -- an ending even less in doubt than that of the most predictable Hollywood fare -- is as rousing as you'd hope and the fast-paced, on-ice action is satisfyingly authentic.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

It's sometimes exciting but rarely thrilling, a victory of formula over finesse.