Review of The Miracle Season (2018) by Jason M — 14 Apr 2018

The Miracle Season.

Initial Reaction: When a group of pastors plays a sport.

Main Characters.

Kelley Fleihler: She's a volleyball player played by Erin Moriarly.

Kathy "Brez" Bresnhan: She's the coach of the volleyball team. She's played by Helen Hunt.

Plot Summary.

The West High school volleyball team is set to win their second championship in two years. Things are going fine until their captain, Caroline Found, died in a moped accident.

After that, the team falls apart, but Caroline's best friend, Kelley, makes a stand: She will play out the rest of the season because that's when Caroline (nicknamed Line) would want her to do.

But these girls are going to need some help, and a coach who knows what she's doing - a coach like Kathy Bresnhan - in order to get back to the finals and a shot at winning that second consecutive championship.

SCORING.

Main Characters.

I like these two a lot. They come across as being very real, very emotional and are willing to go to great distances to get that volleyball team back together. SCORE: 9.

Supporting Cast.

The rest of the cast isn't all that memorable: the other girls on the volleyball team look like carbon copies of Kelley, the other adults don't add much to the mix, and the opponents just don't have much personality in them. SCORE: 4.

Plot.

Will they win that championship? Will Kelley rise to the challenge of being captain? This film needed to talk more about the journey instead of the destination. SCORE: 3.

Originality.

This film follows the same playbook as just about every other underdog sports film. Maybe it's time to stop making these films. SCORE: 2.

Violence Factor.

We don't get to see the crash that takes Caroline's life, and there's nothing graphic shown. But I would've liked to get some details as to how she crashed so it may prevent another accident in the future. SCORE: 4.

Other Moral Issues.

One of the biggest problems I have with films in the underdog genre is they say "Winning isn't everything", yet in almost every one of these films, the team wins the big contest near the end of the film. This really undermines the message the movie tries to sent out. SCORE: 2.

Final Score (out of 60): 24 % Score: 40%.

It tries to be so much more than your average underdog sports film, but all I see is your average underdog sports film.