Miracle (2004) Critic Reviews

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.Read the full review

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

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.Read the full review

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.Read the full review

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

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.Read the full review

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.Read the full review

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.Read the full review

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