Miracle: 5/10

Rating: 5/10 (13 February 2004)

I don't really understand Disney's viewpoint of sports movies. Their three main ones, Remember the Titans, The Rookie, and now Miracle, are all similar and different. All of them have underdogs that come up from below to win, but each has a separate quality to them, which I will get to later.
Coach Herb Brooks (Kurt Russell), who was taken out right before the 1960 Olympics, where the USA won the gold medal in hockey, is hired to coach the 1980 Olympic team. He takes 21 "rag-tag misfits" and tries to put them together as a team to defeat the previously unbeatable Soviet team. Will they be able to do it? Well, considering the title of the movie is Miracle, and it wouldn't be a miracle if the people who have won for the last twenty years won....
Remember the Titans worked because it dealt with more than the sport; it had racial issues added to it, adding another layer to it. Also, the cliché of "rag-tag misfits coming together to win the big game" worked in that movie, because it focused on general characters, while in Miracle, there wasn't really anything below the surface. Eric Guggenheim's debut script tries to borrow off of other sports movies by attempting to have both interesting subplots involving the coach AND the players...sadly, neither of them work out.
The Rookie was great because it showed the protagonist's inner conflict. While Brooks didn't really have any inner conflicts, anything involving the coach was barely fleshed out, and just whatever information we needed was given randomly. It's obvious that Miracle "borrowed" from those movies, but it's nowhere near as good as they are.
Russell is great, though, contrasting the rest of the movie. As the hard-as-nails coach, this might be the performance to really put him into the public's eye. Although the script doesn't put any backstory for him, it's obvious that Russell put hard work into portraying this character. Patricia Clarkson is wasted as his wife, who seems upset that her husband is always away, but name a recent movie in which Clarkson plays someone who isn't upset. All of the people who play the hockey players do what they need to do: skate.
I suppose Disney had trouble keeping this movie at a PG. Because whatever fight scenes there were, they were extremely tame. It looked like two figure skaters walking around each other. I don't exactly call that "rough sports action". On the other hand, this movie had way too many uses of the word "hell", it's probably just Guggenheim's favorite word. Although I'm not a big sports fan, I enjoyed some of the hockey action. It's not exciting, because it's obvious who wins, but it's fun to watch.
If you go to see the overlong Miracle (in which 30 minutes could have easily been taken out), see it for Russell's performance, or just sneak into it at the end where most of the hockey action is, because there's nothing for the first hour and a half that's that good.
My rating: 5/10
Rated PG for language and some rough sports action.