A Miracle? Not quite

Let's get one thing straight: This is a Disney movie. The title is Miracle. It's not being ironic.

It is vital to keep these three facts in mind should you venture out to see this film. Given the title and the company behind Miracle, it's unsurprising that the movie is shamelessly manipulative of the viewer's emotions—it couldn't have accomplished its objective more effectively (or obviously) if someone in the audience was being paid to hold up signs blaring "Applause!" and "Tears!" at the appropriate moments.

However, keeping in mind Disney's trademark sentimental heavy-handedness actually makes Miracle a better movie, because, surprisingly enough, it aspires to be more than The Mighty Ducks ten years older and twelve years earlier. Along with the expected "underestimated underdogs conquer adversity" theme and all the obligatory sports-movie moments that entails, Miracle attempts to put its story into chronological perspective. It not only brings the audience into the world of hockey, but also the world of 1980, a dismal time for Americans in which morale was low, Cold War tensions ran high and the, well, miraculous events of the 1980 Olympics seemed not only exciting, but desperately important.

To dispatch with the inevitable comparison to The Mighty Ducks: Miracle is not that movie (at least most of the time). Unfortunately, that doesn't necessarily make it a better one. The addition of historical context to the formula that has been reused with most popular sports—including baseball (The Bad News Bears) and soccer (The Big Green)—is an intriguing and creative touch by Director Gavin O'Connor and writer Eric Guggenheim. But the scenes that are the least trite are also the least interesting. Despite their efforts to make us care about America as a whole, in the end the only thing that really resonates with the audience is the hockey team and their struggles to win Olympic gold.

In 1980 Herb Brooks (Kurt Russell) put together a hockey team comprised mostly of rookies and students embroiled in intercollegiate rivalries and promised to take away the gold medal from the Soviets, who had dominated hockey for decades. Brooks puts his team through more physical exertion than seems humanly possible, but in the end turns out hardened hockey warriors with just enough endurance, skill, and teamwork to have a chance (infinitely improbably, of course) at taking on the USSR.

O'Connor successfully ups the stakes significantly with each successive hockey game and practice, dropping in enough missed shots, intercepted passes, and loss of heart to lead the movie to an exciting finish. Though the sappy moments are there (at one point late in their training, team members protest the addition of a new player because it disrupts their "family"), they don't interfere with Miracle's sincerity and passion.

Before his team can take on the world's best, Brooks must deal with their petty bickering and unwillingness to cooperate. "When you pull on that jersey, the name on the front is a hell of a lot more important than the one on the back," he admonishes his players after one of their squabbles. O'Connor seems to have taken that motto a bit too much to heart. The players are nearly indistinguishable, often in both appearance and mannerisms. It takes a far more attentive mind than mine to remember any of their names or match one to a face. More diverse, atypical characters would have made some of the off-rink moments more interesting.

The same bland character flaws hold true for Brooks' wife Patty (Patricia Clarkson). She feels alienated and ignored by her husband, who pursues his goals too obsessively and exclusively for her tastes. But Clarkson comes off as a shallow annoyance to Russell's intense Brooks rather than as a woman with valid grievances. Russell imbues Brooks with enough humanity and fire that we want more for him to succeed at hockey than at his marriage.

Much American history is imparted in household moments between Patty and Herb as a way of explaining the nationwide funk that has overcome Americans. But in context the Iranian hostage crisis and oil shortage seem so much less exciting than what's going on with twenty attractive lads at the local ice-rink that we just want to hurry through the scenes of domesticity and get back to hockey.

But the historical footnotes of Miracle do succeed brilliantly in creating a more tense atmosphere during the times of hardship for the American hockey team and adding an extra-help of uplifting at the inevitable ending (refer back to the title). The final showdown between the Soviets and Americans is much more emotionally fraught because it feels both to characters in the film and the audience that a victory on the ice would, just for a moment, feel like America had won the Cold War.

But when the buzzer has sounded, Miracle, though an admirable attempt to broaden the genre, has done little to improve it. Instead of gliding smoothly along on pre-forged paths, it bumbles into new territory and loses it's way.

Miracle is rated PG for language and some rough sports action.