Miracle (2004)

This was a pretty nice movie overall. It had its bad points but they were more subtle. The good stuff was out in front: the realistic hockey scenes and the inspiring true-life story of an amazing underdog sports team pulling off the "miracle." That, of course, was the 1980 United States Olympic hockey team winning the gold medal and along the way becoming the first team in 20 years to defeat the Soviets.

The story also is about Herb Brooks, the coach of the team. Everything in here centers around him. Kurt Russell does a nice job playing him, although I don't understand the Polish accent Russell used. Why would Brooks have a Polish accent?

Over the years, sports movies - as in other genres - are becoming more and more realistic. This was about as good as it gets in that regard. A number of the actors are players, meaning they know how to skate. A documentary with the DVD shows the great lengths they went to in filming this in order make the action look realistic. It's not fake; these guys know how to play the game and the camera-work, along with the sound, is outstanding.

For a fairly long film (135 minutes) this film moves by fast and the drama is there but not super-intense since everyone knows the final result. The story is basically, as mentioned, about Brooks and the way he molded a group of kids together to play so well as a team. Many of his ideas would not have been implemented had others had a say, but Brooks proved them all wrong.

The only part of the film that was totally unnecessary was the typical Liberal slant that Hollywood just has to put in our faces every chance it gets. Here, they do it by quick cheap shots against Republican Presidents while airing an inspirational speech by Democrat Jimmy Carter. They have just stuck with the hockey angle, which the filmmakers here did extremely well. Still, it's a very good sports movie that even non- hockey fans should enjoy.

Fmovies: Kurt Russell does a wonderful job of portraying Herb Brooks, an innovative hockey coach, and a hard-driving motivator of the young American team that competed at, and won, the 1980 Lake Placid Olympic hockey championship. Indeed, everyone is great, including the hockey players who learned to act to portray the famous group of college amateur players that Brooks pulled together to form a tight-knit and well-conditioned squad.

Camera work and re-creation of key plays is amazing -- maybe the best hockey footage ever shot (see the DVD special features). Also touching is the collage of tragic events involving the USA in the 60's and 70's, leading up to the Olympics. By the way: I found the (voiceover) speech we hear from 1980 by Jimmy Carter ("The USA has a crisis of confidence..") as moving as MLK's famous "I have a dream" speech. It sets the stage nicely for the events that follow - we all need a dream from time to time, or maybe a Miracle.

And you don't feel sorry for the Russians, this the last vestige of an arrogant cold-war-produced hockey machine: seasoned veterans laying out college kids with nasty body-checks, or slashes (just in case you thought us Canucks had the patent rights to tough hockey). Good news, though: the USA was up to it, repaying hefty checks in spades.

Finally, there is is some insight into Brooks hockey ideas, years ahead of their time: carefully-rehearsed breakout plays, circle patterns of player movement, and short 40-50 second shifts to keep players fresh.

There is a nice up-to-dater on where the players were in 2006 when the film was made, but the NHL careers were overlooked - several of these guys went on to have stellar careers in professional hockey. The talent level was substantial.

Anyway-- good job all around.

Miracle is a Walt Disney movie about hockey. This sounds like Mighty Ducks, but believe me, it's not. Miracle stands on its own as a great movie. Disney has made true stories about sports in the past like Remember the Titans, and movies like that had the same Disney feel. Miracle is a movie for everyone to go see. It is a wonderful movie about a true game in history.

This movie tells the story of Herb Brooks. Brooks works endlessly studying films and picking players to represent the United States in the Olympics. He doesn't just see this as a job, but he sees it as a second chance. Brooks was on the 1960 Olympic hockey team, but just before they left to compete, Brooks was cut from the team. The team went on to win, but Herb Brooks wasn't there to get the gold. Now this is his chance to win. The movie starts with Brooks getting the job and from there we see his plan. Brooks tells his players from the start how he's not going to be their friend, but he's going to be their coach. When Brooks says something he means it. Brooks changes the way the Americans play and he teaches them the way their tough opponents play. Brooks plans to beat them at their own game. It seems impossible in the beginning for Brooks to get these young guys that have never played together, and teach them a whole new way to play. It also seems impossible for the USA team to defeat the Soviet Union. The Soviets seem like an unstoppable force that can't be beaten. When you see the Soviets in action it does look impossible, but this movie shows how nothing is impossible. Miracle really doesn't go into all of the players, except Jim Craig. Craig and his father are going through a tough time because of Mrs. Craig's death. You see Jim struggle and all you want throughout the movie is for him to win the big one for his family. Besides Jim Craig, you're never really introduced to the rest of the guys. The only one that you're with throughout the movie is Herb Brooks, well portrayed by Kurt Russell. You see what it's like to assemble a winning team. You also see Brooks getting so caught up in his work that he has no time for his family. All you want is for this guy to win.

This movie is more than just a sports movie. It is a movie that shows dreams can come true. You watch a team of young guys bond and become a family. You see these guys win from all of their hard work and determination. Their win at the time was a miracle and even today watching this movie you get the same great feeling that these guys did the impossible. This is a great sports movie and even if you don't like sports, it is still a great movie.

I highly recommend this movie to everyone. It is a movie that you should definitely see if you're down because it is a movie about hope. It is also about victory and when the movie is over it will have every red-blooded American cheering for the good old USA. This movie must have done something right because it had everyone get just as excited as they would have been years ago. When the USA team shoots that final goal to make the score 4 to 3 and the clock starts to wind down, you see everyone getting more and more excited. Finally when the clock runs out and you see that the USA has won, everyone is on their feet cheering. Then when the American flag is waved high in the air you hear the people in the theater cheering USA. Miracle made you feel as if you were back in time witnessing the real game. The movie lets you know what's going on at the time with clips from history and it is j

Miracle fmovies. MIRACLE, the Disney retelling of the U.S. Hockey squad's astonishing Gold Medal performance at Lake Placid in 1980, is not a great film (a TV-movie from 1981, "Miracle on Ice", despite the bizarre casting of 69-year old Karl Malden as 43-year old coach Herb Brooks, is superior, although relying heavily on TV footage for game sequences), but it does offer Kurt Russell in one of the finest performances of his long career.

The 53-year old Russell, a life-long veteran of both TV and film (making his debut on a "Sugarfoot" TV episode, at age 6), has developed a reputation over the past two decades as a very competent, if not overpowering leading man, primarily in action films (ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, TOMBSTONE, BREAKDOWN) and comedies (USED CARS, CAPTAIN RON, OVERBOARD). What is often forgotten, however, is that he has remarkable 'range' as an actor, with brilliant performances in the TV-movie "Elvis" (1979), the underrated SWING SHIFT (1984, where he met his long-time love, Goldie Hawn), and 2003's DARK BLUE (as a crooked cop searching for redemption during the bloody aftermath of the Rodney King riots in L.A.). As age has carved his features, Russell has lost the "beach boy" glamor that had often 'stereotyped' him in the past, and gives his 'Herb Brooks' a sense of credibility and pain that lifts his performance to Academy Award caliber.

Herb Brooks was a remarkable person, long before Lake Placid. Despite success in coaching a string of national champion college hockey teams, he had never recovered from being the last player 'cut' from the 1960 Gold Medal U.S. hockey squad, and from being a member of the '64 and '68 teams that were humiliated by the Soviets. Driven by a desire to beat the nearly invincible Russian squad, he realized that a group of college 'all-stars' would never possess the 'team' skills to get the job done. Ruthlessly, refusing the assistance of the U.S. Olympic Hockey Committee, he pieced together a squad of talented skaters, 'broke' them, then remolded them to fit his vision, working them unmercifully for over six months, while spouting Vince Lombardi-like platitudes. Despite his torturous regimen, just days before the Olympics, his team would be humiliated by the Soviets, 10-3, and no one gave his squad a chance for a medal.

But Brooks had faith, and a squad that was 'hungry'...

While the film suffers from a lack of depth in the portrayal of the players (by the way, they do all their own skating; TV footage is not used), MIRACLE's 'feel' of the decade is well-done, using montages and voice-overs to convey the American sense of helplessness in a decade of tragedies. The unexpected U.S. victory galvanized the nation (Al Michaels' stunned reaction, "Do you believe in Miracles?", has become a catch phrase for both the game, and the times), and actually contributed to turning the country around.

While the Academy Awards will probably ignore Kurt Russell's commanding performance (as the film was not a 'hit'), MIRACLE is still a film worth viewing, given our own troubled times. While the film may not be 'great', it's message of hope is certainly worthwhile!

It's hard to recreate the magic of a once-in-a-lifetime event, but Miracle comes pretty close.

It succeeds in recapturing the spirit of the times, the personality of coach Herb Brooks, the tension of the game, and the exhilaration of Al Michaels' famous call as the clock went to 0:00. While there are plenty of minor things I could quibble about, Miracle's ability to recapture the spirit of the Soviet upset makes it a success.

A movie about this subject could easily have been a stinker, but Miracle isn't that at all. It's a great sports movie that suffers only in comparison to the real story. I gave it 8/10.

I was too young to have known anything about this game when it was played in real life, but it was definitely more than a game. It concerned world politics and the cold war. The movie did a good job showing how seemingly impossible it seemed for the young American team to beat the best team in the world who had been playing together for 10 years. And Kurt Russell did a good job as the tough coach who was hard on the players to get the most out of them. I also liked the way the hockey games were filmed. I think hockey is the most boring sport and I don't know any of the rules, but the way it was filmed let the least knowlegdable person follow what was going on.

FINAL VERDICT: If you like sports movies, then don't miss this one.