Review of Miracle

Miracle takes a historically magical moment in USA sports and does very little with it

Maybe it’s because I’m a communist, but I found Miracle a little boring. I watched it because it won the Most Inspirational Movie in Movie Madness this year and I couldn’t really remember the last time I’d seen it. Now I know why I couldn’t remember it.

Miracle does a great job finding hockey players to create realistic game play. Nobody is spiking a volleyball with a closed fist in this movie. That helped keep my attention for a bit. But when it was time for the inevitable climax, I was fairly unmoved. Perhaps the two prior hours of cheesy inspirational music in scenes where it didn’t belong made me numb to it. (Do we really need it when he’s making phone calls to his wife?) Or maybe because I knew how it was going to end. Or maybe because it wasn’t the gold medal game, but by the time I remembered that, I was already just waiting for the movie to end.

And what about this movie is actually inspirational? It’s not like I’m inspired to go play hockey now. Or even watch hockey. I’m not inspired to try out for the Olympics either. Not even curling. I’m a little inspired to watch the actual game somewhere if I can track it down. But only a little, and I don’t think that’s what people meant when they voted this as Most Inspirational. Outside of some unusual coaching motivational techniques and decent hockey simulation, there wasn’t a lot to the movie. Maybe they should have thrown in a love story with Leo and Kate Winslet. That’s how you spice up a docudrama.

3/10

Dustin Fisher