Miracle Blu-ray Review

Miracle

Blu-ray Review
Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment
Release: June, 23, 2009

Miracle is up there as one of the best inspirational sports movies of all time, telling the amazing story of the 1980 US men’s Olympic hockey team, and their road to winning gold against some amazing odds.

Miracle has hit the Blu-ray format for the first time, and stars Kurt Russell as the head coach of the US men’s team, Herb Brooks.

He does a great job in this role, really pushing the envelope and capturing the true emotion of a hockey coach, with realistic practice sequences, and the memorable “again” scene where the players were throwing up right on the ice from exhaustion.

The movie follows the path of Herb Brooks from being chosen to be the coach, going through tryouts, months of training, and finally the Olympics themselves.

The whole way in which the film progresses allows you to connect with the players, the coach, and their true personalities and emotions.

This is a film that will truly suck you in and never let go, you will have butterflies by the time the credits roll.

Disney has done a top-notch job yet again with the video and audio transfer over to Blu-ray, with the video being presented in full 1080p, while the audio is presented in DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Some of the game sequences look and sound amazing.

The extras on this release come straight from the past DVD release, with next to nothing in terms of new Blu-ray exclusives.

The extras that are here if you have never seen them though are quite good, including a making-of featurette, a look at how the hockey scenes were filmed, and a great audio commentary.

The 40-minute ESPN Roundtable is also highly-entertaining as real-life players come to talk about the film.

Some outtakes are included, as well as an extra looking at the sound as well.

Miracle is a very strong release on the Blu-ray format as the movie is phenomenal, and the audio/video transfer is superb. Well-worth picking up for fans of these types of inspirational sports stories.

Movie: 9.0 A tremendous sports film.

Video: 9.2 Top notch stuff from Disney per usual.

Audio: 9.0 The sound mix is very strong, engrossing.

Extras: 7.5 Good extras, not enough Blu-ray exclusives though.

Final Score: 8.7