New York Times
"The movie efficiently delivers the story points." 02/06/2004 Los Angeles Times
"Powered by an excellent Kurt Russell performance, MIRACLE treats old-fashioned, emotional material with an intelligence that respects both the story and the audience." 02/06/2004 p.E1 USA Today
"Like SEABISCUIT, the film ends on a familiar, rousing note of triumph, which is bound to move most audiences with its message of perseverance and belief in one's dreams." 02/06/2004 p.8E Entertainment Weekly
"[Russell is] wonderfully compelling as a tough, taciturn, driven leader....MIRACLE has a good offensive game as an inspirational how-to about team building." 02/13/2004 p.52 Box Office
"MIRACLE succeeds solidly at its main aim: stirringly recreating one of the great sports sagas of all time." 04/01/2004 p.165 Premiere
3 stars out of 4 -- "Kurt Russell is very good...and it hits all the right marks to make this an exciting and heartwarming flick." 06/17/2009 ReelViews 8 of 10
February 22, 1980. For hockey fans, that day will be forever remembered. "The Miracle on Ice," as it became commonly known, was to some a battle in the Cold War and to others the greatest upset in sports history. But to those who played in the game, it was validation and an opportunity to move on to win an Olympic gold medal. In the United States, hockey has always been the runt of the major sports litter, trailing football, baseball, and basketball in popularity. But, for a few days in Lake Placid 24 years ago, it was suddenly, briefly bigger than all of its siblings...Miracle is a reasonably straightforward re-telling of how the team was assembled, polished, and pushed into battle under the relentless domination of its coach, Herb Brooks (Kurt Russell). The film ends with a 20-minute re-creation of the classic game, complete with audio excerpts of the original broadcast by Al Michaels (with his immortal call - "Do you believe in miracles? Yes!" - included). For the most part, Eric Guggenheim's screenplay is respectful of the historical record. He takes minimal artistic license, except during some of the quieter scenes when the participants are away from the rink...In recent years, Disney has scored a couple of big hits with based-on-real-life sports stories (Remember the Titans and The Rookie). There's no reason that Miracle can't succeed in the same way. The story is as crowd-pleasing as it gets, with the only possible misstep being that the first half (which deals with the assembling of the team) occasionally seems to drag. There's no need to understand hockey to appreciate the film; it has universal appeal...Miracle is inspirational and uplifting - qualities we are as much in need of today as we were during the winter of 1980. - James Berardinelli
Chicago Sun-Times 6 of 10
"Miracle" is a sports movie that's more about the coach than about the team, and that's a miracle, too. At a time when movies are shamelessly aimed at the young male demographic, here's a film with a whole team of hockey players in their teens and early 20s, and the screenplay hardly bothers to tell one from another. Instead, the focus is on Herb Brooks (Kurt Russell), a veteran hockey coach from Minnesota who is assigned the thankless task of assembling a team to represent America in the 1980 Winter Olympics. The United States hasn't won since 1960, and the professionals on the Soviet team -- not to mention the Swedes, the Finns and the Canadians -- rule the sport...In keeping with its analytical style, the movie doesn't use a lot of trick photography in the hockey games. Unlike the fancy shots in a movie like "The Mighty Ducks," this one films the hockey matches more or less the way they might look in a good documentary, or a superior TV broadcast. We're in the middle of the confusion on the ice, feeling the energy rather than focusing on plot points...That leaves Kurt Russell and his character Herb Brooks as the center and reason for the film. 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; the real Brooks was available as a consultant to the film. And Russell and O'Connor create a study of a personality, of a man who is leading young men through a process that led him to disappointment 20 years earlier. He has ideas about hockey and ideas about coaching, and like the Zen master Phil Jackson begins with philosophy, not strategy. The film doesn't even end with the outcome of the Big Game. It ends by focusing on the coach, after it is all over. - Roger Ebert
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